History of the Assyrian people
Encyclopedia
The history of the Assyrian people begins with the rise of the Akkadian Empire during the 24th century BC, in the early bronze age
period. Sargon of Akkad
united all the native Akkadian speaking Semites and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (including the Assyrians) under his rule. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadians split into two nations, Assyria
in the north and later on Babylonia
in the south. However, Babylonia unlike Assyria, was founded and originally ruled by non indigenous Amorites, and was more often than not ruled by other waves of non indigenous peoples such as Kassites
, Hittites
, Elamites, Arameans and Chaldea
ns.
In Biblical tradition, they are descended from Abraham
's grandson (Dedan
son of Jokshan
), progenitor of the ancient Assyria
ns. However there is no historical basis for the biblical assertion whatsoever; there is no mention in Assyrian records (which date as far back as 21st century BC), andAssyria existed many centuries prior to the estimated birth of Abraham, circa 1800 BC.
The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 23rd century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya
, who was a contemporary of Ibrium
of Ebla
. However, many of these early kings would have been local rulers, usually subject to the Akkadian Empire. Assyria essentially existed as part of a unified Akkadian nation for much of the period from the 24th century BC to the 21st century BC, and a nation state from the 21st century BC until 605 BC.
Assyria was for most of this period a powerful nation and had three periods of empire, between 1813–1754 BC, 1365–1076 BC and 911–608 BC.
Following the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and final resistance after 605 BC, Assyria came under the rule of its Babylonian brethren for a short period, until 539 BC. The last king of Babylon, Nabonidus
, was ironically an Assyrian from Harran
. Assyria then became an Achaemenid province named Athura (Assyria). The Assyrian people
were Christianized in the 1st to 3rd centuries, in Roman Syria and Persian Assyria.
They were divided by the Nestorian Schism
in the 5th century, and from the 8th century, they became a religious minority following the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia. They suffered a genocide
at the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and today to a significant extent live in diaspora
.
They are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from their neighbours in the Middle East
– the Arabs, Persians
, Kurds
, Turks
, and Armenians
.
Assyrian nationalism emphasizes their indigeneity to the Assyrian homeland
, and cultural continuity since the Iron Age Neo-Assyrian Empire.
harks back to the Akkadian Empire of the Early Bronze Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire flourished between 911BC and 608BC, before it was conquered by a coalition led by their Babylonian brothers which also included Medes
, Persians
, Scythians and Cimmerians
. Linguistically, the Assyrians today speak dialects of eastern Aramaic, which was originally introduced to Mesopotamia in 1200 BC by large numbers of Aramean migrants who interbred with the native Akkadians. Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire during Classical Antiquity
.
After the defeat of Ashur-uballit II
in 608 BC at Haran
, and finally at Carchemish
in 605 BC, the Assyrian empire was divided up by the key invading forces, the Babylonian Chaldean dynasty and the Medes
.
The Median empire was then conquered by Cyrus
in 547 BC., under the Achaemenid dynasty, and the Persian empire was thus founded, which later consumed the Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire. King Cyrus changed Assyria's capital from Nineveh
to Arbela
. Assyrians became front line
soldiers for the Persian empire under King Xerxes
, playing a major role in the Battle of Marathon
under King Darius I in 490 BC.
Achaemenid Assyria retained a separate identity for some time, official correspondence being in Imperial Aramaic, and there was even an attempted revolt by Assyria in 520 BC. Under Greek Seleucid rule, however, Aramaic gave way to Greek language
as the official language. Mesopotamian Aramaic was marginalised, but remained the spoken language of the native population of Assyria,and indeed the whole of Mesopotamia.
Syria became a Roman province
in 64 BC
, following the Third Mithridatic War
.
The Assyrian army accounted for three legions of the Roman army
, defending the Parthia
n border. In the 1st century, it was the Asyrian army that enabled Vespasian
's coup. Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the crisis of the third century
. From the later 2nd century, the Roman senate
included several notable Assyrians, including Claudius Pompeianus
and Avidius Cassius
. In the 3rd century, Assyrians even reached for imperial power, with the Severan dynasty
.
From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Perso-Roman Wars. It would eventually become a Roman province
(Assyria Provincia) between 116 and 363 AD, although Roman control of this province was unstable and was often returned to the Persians.
Along with the Armenians
, Greeks
and Ethiopians, the Assyrians were among the first people to convert to Christianity
and spread Eastern Christianity
to the Far East
.
Whereas Latin
and Greek
Christian cultures became protected by the Roman
and Byzantine
empires respectively, Assyrian/Syriac Christianity often found itself marginalised and persecuted. Antioch
was the political capital of this culture, and was the seat of the patriarchs
of the church. However, Antioch was heavily Hellenized, and the Assyrian cities of Edessa
, Nisibis
, Arbela
and Ctesiphon
became Syriac cultural centres.
The Council of Seleucia
of ca. 325
dealt with jurisdictional conflicts among the leading bishops. At the subsequent Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon
of 410
, the Christian communities of Mesopotamia
renounced all subjection to Antioch and the "Western" bishops and the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon assumed the rank of Catholicos
.
The Nestorian
and Monophysite
schisms of the 5th century divided the church into separate denominations.
With the rise of Syriac Christianity
, eastern Aramaic enjoyed a renaissance as a classical language in the 2nd to 8th centuries AD, and the modern Assyrian people
continue to speak eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects which still retain a number of Akkadian loan words to this day.
had its own bishop of the Church of the East
at the time of the Arab
conquest of Mesopotamia. The Arabs still recognised Assyrian identity in the Medieval period, describing them as Ashuriyun
. During the era of the Islamic Empire
, Assyrians maintained their autonomy
. The ancient city of Ashur
was still occupied by Assyrians until the 14th Century BC massacres of Tamurlane.
Starting from the 19th century after the rise of nationalism in the Balkans
, the Ottomans started viewing Assyrians and other Christians in their eastern front as a potential threat. Furthermore, constant wars between The Ottomans and the Shiite Safavids encouraged the Ottomans into settling their allies the nomadic Sunni Kurds in what is today Northern Iraq
and South-eastern Turkey
. Starting from then Kurdish tribal chiefs established semi-independent emirates, those emirs sought to consolidate their power by attacking Assyrian communities which were already well established there. Scholars estimate that tens of thousands of Assyrian in the Hakkari
region were massacred in 1843 when Badr Khan the emir of Bohtan invaded their region. After a later massacre in 1846 The Ottomans were forced by the western powers into intervening in the region, and the ensuing conflict destroyed the Kurdish emirates and reasserted the Ottoman power in the area.
and its aftermath saw its end, during which time Assyrians (and Armenians
and Greeks
) suffered the a genocide
occurred (1914 to 1922), where an estimated two-thirds of Assyrians died in organized massacres, starvation, disease, and systematic kidnapping and rape.
Assyrians promeniently served in Iraq Levies organized by the British in 1919.
In 1932, Assyrians refused to become part of the newly-formed state of Iraq
and instead demanded their recognition as a nation within a nation. The Assyrian leader Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
asked the League of Nations
to recognize the right of Assyrians to govern the area known as the "Assyrian triangle" in northern Iraq. Eventually this led to the Iraqi government to commit its first of many massacres against its minority populations (see Simele massacre
).
With the fall of Saddam Hussein and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
, no reliable census figures exist on the Assyrians in Iraq (as they do not for Iraqi Kurds
or Turkmen
), though the number of Assyrians is estimated to be approximately 800,000.
The Assyrian Democratic Movement
(or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the ADM also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 – June 2004) guided Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
In October 2008 many Iraqi Christians(about 12,000 almost Assyrians) have fled the city of Mosul following a wave of murders and threats targeting their community.The murder of at least a dozen Christians, death threats to others, the destruction of houses forced the Christians to leave their city in hurry. Some families crossed the borders to Syria and Turkey while others have been given shelters in Churches and Monasteries. Accusations and blames have been exchanged between Sunni fundamentalists and some Kurdish groups for being behind this new exodus. For the time the motivation of these culprits remains mysterious , but some claims related it to the provincial elections due to be held at the end of January 2009, and especially connected to Christian's demand for wider presentation in the provincial councils.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7696242.stm
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
period. Sargon of Akkad
Sargon of Akkad
Sargon of Akkad, also known as Sargon the Great "the Great King" , was an Akkadian emperor famous for his conquest of the Sumerian city-states in the 23rd and 22nd centuries BC. The founder of the Dynasty of Akkad, Sargon reigned in the last quarter of the third millennium BC...
united all the native Akkadian speaking Semites and the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (including the Assyrians) under his rule. After the fall of the Akkadian Empire, the Akkadians split into two nations, Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
in the north and later on Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
in the south. However, Babylonia unlike Assyria, was founded and originally ruled by non indigenous Amorites, and was more often than not ruled by other waves of non indigenous peoples such as Kassites
Kassites
The Kassites were an ancient Near Eastern people who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca. 1531 BC to ca. 1155 BC...
, Hittites
Hittites
The Hittites were a Bronze Age people of Anatolia.They established a kingdom centered at Hattusa in north-central Anatolia c. the 18th century BC. The Hittite empire reached its height c...
, Elamites, Arameans and Chaldea
Chaldea
Chaldea or Chaldaea , from Greek , Chaldaia; Akkadian ; Hebrew כשדים, Kaśdim; Aramaic: ܟܐܠܕܘ, Kaldo) was a marshy land located in modern-day southern Iraq which came to briefly rule Babylon...
ns.
In Biblical tradition, they are descended from Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
's grandson (Dedan
Dedan
The word Dedan means "low ground". The people are called Dedanim or Dedanites.In the Bible, it can refer to either:* A son of Raamah . His descendants are mentioned in Isaiah 21:13, Ezekiel 25:13 and Ezekiel 27:15...
son of Jokshan
Jokshan
Jokshan ; most probably Josephus' Jazar. According to the Bible he was the second son of Abraham and his concubine Keturah, whom he wed after the death of Sarah...
), progenitor of the ancient Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
ns. However there is no historical basis for the biblical assertion whatsoever; there is no mention in Assyrian records (which date as far back as 21st century BC), andAssyria existed many centuries prior to the estimated birth of Abraham, circa 1800 BC.
The Assyrian king list records kings dating from the 23rd century BC onwards, the earliest being Tudiya
Tudiya
Tudiya is the earliest recorded Assyrian king. According to Georges Roux and the Assyrian King List he would have lived in the 23rd century BC. Tudiya concluded a treaty with king Ibrium of Ebla for the use of a trading post officially controlled by Ebla. He was suceeded by Adamu....
, who was a contemporary of Ibrium
Ibrium
Ibrium was an ancient ruler of the Kingdom of Ebla. He dominated Ebla and its subordinate cities and became its most powerful ruler. Ibrium introduced absolute, hereditary monarchy in the kingdom and was succeeded by his son Ibbi-Sipish....
of Ebla
Ebla
Ebla Idlib Governorate, Syria) was an ancient city about southwest of Aleppo. It was an important city-state in two periods, first in the late third millennium BC, then again between 1800 and 1650 BC....
. However, many of these early kings would have been local rulers, usually subject to the Akkadian Empire. Assyria essentially existed as part of a unified Akkadian nation for much of the period from the 24th century BC to the 21st century BC, and a nation state from the 21st century BC until 605 BC.
Assyria was for most of this period a powerful nation and had three periods of empire, between 1813–1754 BC, 1365–1076 BC and 911–608 BC.
Following the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and final resistance after 605 BC, Assyria came under the rule of its Babylonian brethren for a short period, until 539 BC. The last king of Babylon, Nabonidus
Nabonidus
Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, reigning from 556-539 BCE.-Historiography on Nabonidus:...
, was ironically an Assyrian from Harran
Harran
Harran was a major ancient city in Upper Mesopotamia whose site is near the modern village of Altınbaşak, Turkey, 24 miles southeast of Şanlıurfa...
. Assyria then became an Achaemenid province named Athura (Assyria). The Assyrian people
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
were Christianized in the 1st to 3rd centuries, in Roman Syria and Persian Assyria.
They were divided by the Nestorian Schism
Nestorian Schism
The Nestorian Schism was the split between the Orthodox Church and churches affiliated with Nestorian doctrine in the 5th century. The schism rose out of a Christological dispute, the key figures in which were Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius...
in the 5th century, and from the 8th century, they became a religious minority following the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia. They suffered a genocide
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...
at the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and today to a significant extent live in diaspora
Assyrian diaspora
The Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac diaspora refers to the estimated population of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in the world that migrated outside of the Middle East or their original homeland. The worldwide diaspora of Syriac Christian communities begins during World War I, with the mass-killings of...
.
They are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from their neighbours in the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
– the Arabs, Persians
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
, Kurds
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...
, Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
, and Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
.
Assyrian nationalism emphasizes their indigeneity to the Assyrian homeland
Assyrian homeland
Assyrian homeland refers to a geographic and cultural region inhabited traditionally by the Assyrian people; who call it Assyria . It is largely coterminous with the Kurdish homeland, including parts of what is now northeast Syria, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and southeastern Turkey.The area...
, and cultural continuity since the Iron Age Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Pre-Christian period
The history of ancient AssyriaAssyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
harks back to the Akkadian Empire of the Early Bronze Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire flourished between 911BC and 608BC, before it was conquered by a coalition led by their Babylonian brothers which also included Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
, Persians
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
, Scythians and Cimmerians
Cimmerians
The Cimmerians or Kimmerians were ancient equestrian nomads of Indo-European origin.According to the Greek historian Herodotus, of the 5th century BC, the Cimmerians inhabited the region north of the Caucasus and the Black Sea during the 8th and 7th centuries BC, in what is now Ukraine and Russia...
. Linguistically, the Assyrians today speak dialects of eastern Aramaic, which was originally introduced to Mesopotamia in 1200 BC by large numbers of Aramean migrants who interbred with the native Akkadians. Aramaic became the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire during Classical Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
.
After the defeat of Ashur-uballit II
Ashur-uballit II
Ashur-uballit II , was the last king of the Assyrian empire. He reigned in the last capital city of Harran from 612 BC to 609 BC, having escaped Nineveh during the siege and capture of that city by the Babylonian-Mede army in 612 BC....
in 608 BC at Haran
Haran
Haran or Aran is a figure in Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. Haran was born in Ur Kaśdim , the son of Terah and thus a descendant of Shem. Haran's brothers were Abram/Abraham and Nahor...
, and finally at Carchemish
Carchemish
Carchemish or Kargamış was an important ancient city of the Mitanni, Hittite and Neo Assyrian Empires, now on the frontier between Turkey and Syria. It was the location of an important battle between the Babylonians and Egyptians, mentioned in the Bible...
in 605 BC, the Assyrian empire was divided up by the key invading forces, the Babylonian Chaldean dynasty and the Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
.
The Median empire was then conquered by Cyrus
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
in 547 BC., under the Achaemenid dynasty, and the Persian empire was thus founded, which later consumed the Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire. King Cyrus changed Assyria's capital from Nineveh
Nineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....
to Arbela
Arbela
Arbela may refer to:*An important city in ancient Jordan, located on the site of modern Irbid, Jordan*The ancient name of the city of Arbil in northern Iraq*Ancient Jewish settlement in Galilee, near the modern moshav Arbel, Israel....
. Assyrians became front line
Front line
A front line is the farthest-most forward position of an armed force's personnel and equipment - generally in respect of maritime or land forces. Forward Line of Own Troops , or Forward Edge of Battle Area are technical terms used by all branches of the armed services...
soldiers for the Persian empire under King Xerxes
Xerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...
, playing a major role in the Battle of Marathon
Battle of Marathon
The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC, during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes. It was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate...
under King Darius I in 490 BC.
Achaemenid Assyria retained a separate identity for some time, official correspondence being in Imperial Aramaic, and there was even an attempted revolt by Assyria in 520 BC. Under Greek Seleucid rule, however, Aramaic gave way to Greek language
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
as the official language. Mesopotamian Aramaic was marginalised, but remained the spoken language of the native population of Assyria,and indeed the whole of Mesopotamia.
Syria became a Roman province
Roman province
In Ancient Rome, a province was the basic, and, until the Tetrarchy , largest territorial and administrative unit of the empire's territorial possessions outside of Italy...
in 64 BC
64 BC
Year 64 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Figulus...
, following the Third Mithridatic War
Third Mithridatic War
The Third Mithridatic War was the last and longest of three Mithridatic Wars fought between Mithridates VI of Pontus and his allies and the Roman Republic...
.
The Assyrian army accounted for three legions of the Roman army
Roman army
The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...
, defending the Parthia
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
n border. In the 1st century, it was the Asyrian army that enabled Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
's coup. Syria was of crucial strategic importance during the crisis of the third century
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression...
. From the later 2nd century, the Roman senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
included several notable Assyrians, including Claudius Pompeianus
Claudius Pompeianus
Tiberius Claudius Pompeianus was a Roman general of emperor Marcus Aurelius. He married Aurelius' daughter Lucilla and rose to the rank of senior senator in Rome before twice refusing emperorship for himself....
and Avidius Cassius
Avidius Cassius
Gaius Avidius Cassius was a Roman general and usurper who briefly ruled Egypt and Syria in 175.-Origins:He was the son of Gaius Avidius Heliodorus, a noted orator who was Prefect of Egypt from 137 to 142 under Hadrian, and wife Junia Cassia Alexandra...
. In the 3rd century, Assyrians even reached for imperial power, with the Severan dynasty
Severan dynasty
The Severan dynasty was a Roman imperial dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 193 and 235. The dynasty was founded by the Roman general Septimius Severus, who rose to power during the civil war of 193, known as the Year of the Five Emperors....
.
From the 1st century BC, Assyria was the theatre of the protracted Perso-Roman Wars. It would eventually become a Roman province
Assyria (Roman province)
Assyria or Assyria Provincia was a roman province that lasted only two years .-History:Assyria was one of three provinces created by the Roman emperor Trajan in 116 AD following a successful military campaign against Parthia, in present-day Iraq.Despite Rome's military victory, Trajan's province...
(Assyria Provincia) between 116 and 363 AD, although Roman control of this province was unstable and was often returned to the Persians.
Early Christian period
Along with the Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
, Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
and Ethiopians, the Assyrians were among the first people to convert to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and spread Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity
Eastern Christianity comprises the Christian traditions and churches that developed in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Northeastern Africa, India and parts of the Far East over several centuries of religious antiquity. The term is generally used in Western Christianity to...
to the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
.
Whereas Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
Christian cultures became protected by the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and Byzantine
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
empires respectively, Assyrian/Syriac Christianity often found itself marginalised and persecuted. Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
was the political capital of this culture, and was the seat of the patriarchs
Patriarch of Antioch
Patriarch of Antioch is a traditional title held by the Bishop of Antioch. As the traditional "overseer" of the first gentile Christian community, the position has been of prime importance in the church from its earliest period...
of the church. However, Antioch was heavily Hellenized, and the Assyrian cities of Edessa
Edessa, Mesopotamia
Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...
, Nisibis
Nisibis
Nusaybin Nisêbîn) is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds. Earlier Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians lived in the city. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009.-Ancient Period:...
, Arbela
Arbela
Arbela may refer to:*An important city in ancient Jordan, located on the site of modern Irbid, Jordan*The ancient name of the city of Arbil in northern Iraq*Ancient Jewish settlement in Galilee, near the modern moshav Arbel, Israel....
and Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon
Ctesiphon, the imperial capital of the Parthian Arsacids and of the Persian Sassanids, was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia.The ruins of the city are located on the east bank of the Tigris, across the river from the Hellenistic city of Seleucia...
became Syriac cultural centres.
The Council of Seleucia
Council of Seleucia
The Council of Seleucia was an early Christian church synod at Seleucia Isauria .In 358, the Roman Emperor Constantius II requested two councils, one of the western bishops at Ariminum and one of the eastern bishops at Nicomedia to resolve the Arian controversy over the nature of the divinity of...
of ca. 325
325
Year 325 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Proculus and Paulinus...
dealt with jurisdictional conflicts among the leading bishops. At the subsequent Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon
Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon
The Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, also called the Council of Mar Isaac, met in AD 410 in Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanid Empire of Persia. The council, extended official recognition to the Empire's Christian community, known as the Church of the East, and established the Bishop of...
of 410
410
Year 410 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year after the Consulship of Honorius and Theodosius...
, the Christian communities of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
renounced all subjection to Antioch and the "Western" bishops and the Bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon assumed the rank of Catholicos
Catholicos
Catholicos, plural Catholicoi, is a title used for the head of certain churches in some Eastern Christian traditions. The title implies autocephaly and in some cases is borne by the designated head of an autonomous church, in which case the holder might have other titles such as Patriarch...
.
The Nestorian
Nestorian Schism
The Nestorian Schism was the split between the Orthodox Church and churches affiliated with Nestorian doctrine in the 5th century. The schism rose out of a Christological dispute, the key figures in which were Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius...
and Monophysite
Monophysitism
Monophysitism , or Monophysiticism, is the Christological position that Jesus Christ has only one nature, his humanity being absorbed by his Deity...
schisms of the 5th century divided the church into separate denominations.
With the rise of Syriac Christianity
Syriac Christianity
Syriac or Syrian Christianity , the Syriac-speaking Christians of Mesopotamia, comprises multiple Christian traditions of Eastern Christianity. With a history going back to the 1st Century AD, in modern times it is represented by denominations primarily in the Middle East and in Kerala, India....
, eastern Aramaic enjoyed a renaissance as a classical language in the 2nd to 8th centuries AD, and the modern Assyrian people
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
continue to speak eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects which still retain a number of Akkadian loan words to this day.
Islamic empires
The ancient Assyrian capital of NinevehNineveh
Nineveh was an ancient Assyrian city on the eastern bank of the Tigris River, and capital of the Neo Assyrian Empire. Its ruins are across the river from the modern-day major city of Mosul, in the Ninawa Governorate of Iraq....
had its own bishop of the Church of the East
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
at the time of the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
conquest of Mesopotamia. The Arabs still recognised Assyrian identity in the Medieval period, describing them as Ashuriyun
Ashuriyun
Ashuriyun is an Arab term used to describe the ethnic Assyrians of northern Mesopotamia first coined in Medieval times by the Arab scholar Ibn al-Nadim....
. During the era of the Islamic Empire
Caliphate
The term caliphate, "dominion of a caliph " , refers to the first system of government established in Islam and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah...
, Assyrians maintained their autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
. The ancient city of Ashur
Ashur
Ashur |Shin]]) in the Masoretic text, which doubles the 'ש'), was the second son of Shem, the son of Noah. Ashur's brothers were Elam, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram....
was still occupied by Assyrians until the 14th Century BC massacres of Tamurlane.
Starting from the 19th century after the rise of nationalism in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, the Ottomans started viewing Assyrians and other Christians in their eastern front as a potential threat. Furthermore, constant wars between The Ottomans and the Shiite Safavids encouraged the Ottomans into settling their allies the nomadic Sunni Kurds in what is today Northern Iraq
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr...
and South-eastern Turkey
Eastern Anatolia Region
The Eastern Anatolia Region is one of seven non-administrative subdivisions of Turkey and encompasses its eastern provinces.The region and the name "Doğu Anadolu Bölgesi" were first defined at the First Geography Congress in 1941. It has the highest average altitude, largest geographical area, and...
. Starting from then Kurdish tribal chiefs established semi-independent emirates, those emirs sought to consolidate their power by attacking Assyrian communities which were already well established there. Scholars estimate that tens of thousands of Assyrian in the Hakkari
Hakkari
Hakkâri , is a city and the capital of the Hakkâri Province of Turkey. The name Hakkâri is derived from the Syriac word, Akkare, meaning farmers...
region were massacred in 1843 when Badr Khan the emir of Bohtan invaded their region. After a later massacre in 1846 The Ottomans were forced by the western powers into intervening in the region, and the ensuing conflict destroyed the Kurdish emirates and reasserted the Ottoman power in the area.
20th century
By the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and its aftermath saw its end, during which time Assyrians (and Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
and Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
) suffered the a genocide
Assyrian genocide
The Assyrian Genocide refers to the mass slaughter of the Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac population of the Ottoman Empire during the 1890s, the First World War, and the period of 1922-1925...
occurred (1914 to 1922), where an estimated two-thirds of Assyrians died in organized massacres, starvation, disease, and systematic kidnapping and rape.
Assyrians promeniently served in Iraq Levies organized by the British in 1919.
In 1932, Assyrians refused to become part of the newly-formed state of Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
and instead demanded their recognition as a nation within a nation. The Assyrian leader Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII
Mar Eshai Shimun XXIII , sometimes known as Mar Shimun XXI Ishaya, Mar Shimun Ishai, or Simon Jesse, was Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East from 1920, when he was a youth, until his assassination on 6 November 1975...
asked the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
to recognize the right of Assyrians to govern the area known as the "Assyrian triangle" in northern Iraq. Eventually this led to the Iraqi government to commit its first of many massacres against its minority populations (see Simele massacre
Simele massacre
The Simele Massacre was a massacre committed by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Iraq during the systematic targeting of Assyrians in northern Iraq in August 1933...
).
Post-Ba'thist Iraq
With the fall of Saddam Hussein and the 2003 invasion of Iraq
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...
, no reliable census figures exist on the Assyrians in Iraq (as they do not for Iraqi Kurds
Iraqi Kurdistan
Iraqi Kurdistan or Kurdistan Region is an autonomous region of Iraq. It borders Iran to the east, Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and the rest of Iraq to the south. The regional capital is Arbil, known in Kurdish as Hewlêr...
or Turkmen
Iraqi Turkmen
The Iraqi Turkmen are an ethnic group who mainly reside in northern Iraq. Estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, in accordance with Iraq's assimilation policies no realistic and independent census results have been revealed regarding the Iraqi Turkmen population...
), though the number of Assyrians is estimated to be approximately 800,000.
The Assyrian Democratic Movement
Assyrian Democratic Movement
The Assyrian Democratic Movement also known as Zowaa is an ethnic Assyrian political party in Iraq, and is currently the only Assyrian-based political party to be voting in the Iraqi parliament....
(or ADM) was one of the smaller political parties that emerged in the social chaos of the occupation. Its officials say that while members of the ADM also took part in the liberation of the key oil cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, the Assyrians were not invited to join the steering committee that was charged with defining Iraq's future. The ethnic make-up of the Iraq Interim Governing Council briefly (September 2003 – June 2004) guided Iraq after the invasion included a single Assyrian Christian, Younadem Kana, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement and an opponent of Saddam Hussein since 1979.
In October 2008 many Iraqi Christians(about 12,000 almost Assyrians) have fled the city of Mosul following a wave of murders and threats targeting their community.The murder of at least a dozen Christians, death threats to others, the destruction of houses forced the Christians to leave their city in hurry. Some families crossed the borders to Syria and Turkey while others have been given shelters in Churches and Monasteries. Accusations and blames have been exchanged between Sunni fundamentalists and some Kurdish groups for being behind this new exodus. For the time the motivation of these culprits remains mysterious , but some claims related it to the provincial elections due to be held at the end of January 2009, and especially connected to Christian's demand for wider presentation in the provincial councils.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7696242.stm