In the first article of this series, I provided a brief historical overview of the Neo-Assyrian, Urartian, and Achaemenid empires, and introduced three prominent symbols frequently found in cylinder seal iconography: the winged disk, fish, and crescent moon.
For roughly two centuries, from ca. 900 -- 700 BC, the Near Eastern empires of Neo-Assyria and Urartu co-existed, though the former gradually conquered and subsumed the latter in the mid-7th century. By 550 BC, forty years after the Assyrians themselves were defeated, the Achaemenid Empire had conquered the major centres of the Near East and catapulted the Persians into position as a regional...
Iraq, which has witnessed wars, embargoes and Islamic State rule, is a traumatised country with Eastern Christians among the first victims. Under Saddam Hussein, there were one and a half million of them in the country, but today only 150,000 remain. Many Iraqi Christians in exil dream of returning. We meet members of the diaspora who have chosen to rebuild their lives in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Mesopotamia Democratic Culture and Art Movement (TEV-ÇAND) made statements in Qamishlo and Kobanê against the Turkish state's attacks on North-East Syria and Aleppo and its surroundings. Hîlala Zêrîn Women's Cultural Movement, Union of Intellectuals, Union of Artists, North-East Syrian Literature Divan, Cultural Council, Syriac Cultural Association and Armenian Community Culture and Art...
This project aims to reshape our understanding of Syriac intellectual culture by investigating its engagement with late antique paideia and with Aristotelian rhetoric. Classical texts such as Isocrates, Plutarch and Themistius were available in Syriac translation from as early as the fourth-fifth centuries CE, but it is yet to be ascertained how Syriac Christians used these texts and how the...
Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani boarded a bus in Damascus in March 2003, heading across the desert to Baghdad with fellow volunteers eager to repel the looming American invasion of Iraq. When he returned home in 2011, after a five-year stint in an American-run prison camp in Iraq, it was as the emissary of Islamic State founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Does your heart soar when you're happy? If you were living in ancient Mesopotamia, you might assign such joyful flights to the liver. Researchers have analysed Mesopotamian texts to see how they described emotions inhabiting different parts of the body. The study, published in iScience, draws on Neo-Assyrian cuneiform texts dating from 934-612 BC.
On Tuesday, Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Chaldean Church in Iraq and worldwide, said that Iraq has "lost two-thirds" of its Christian population due to conflicts and wars. "Unfortunately, the Middle East is suffering from conflicts and wars, as seen in Palestine, Lebanon, and currently Syria, as well as in Sudan and Ukraine. Other neighboring countries may also become involved.
The long-frozen civil war in Syria has reignited in recent days. Last week, in the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, radical Islamist insurgents led by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) moved into one of Syria's largest cities, as well as the countryside around Idlib and neighbouring Hama province.
Syrian Christians in Aleppo face "grave danger" after Islamist militias took over the city, local church leaders say. The militias, including jihadist groups, have seized control following the withdrawal of government forces and are removing all Christmas decorations, according to a report.
The Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically native to the Armenian Highlands, were long thought to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory, rooted primarily in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, stemmed from his observation that Armenians serving in the Persian army were armed in a manner similar to the Phrygians.
The parliament of the Australian state of Tasmania has recognized the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, the Central Committee of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation/ Dashnaktsutyun reported. Tasmania has become the third Australian state, after New South Wales and South Australia, to recognize the Armenian Genocide.
(AINA) -- Join Ashur and Ninwe on a heartfelt journey through the pages of Bravery Beyond Borders: The Journey of the Assyrian People. This inspirational tale, written especially for children (ages 5-12), follows the resilience of the Assyrian community, blending history, courage, and strong family bonds.
Phoenix (AINA) -- The Arizona Department of Education has officially approved the inclusion of the Assyrian Genocide in the state's social studies curriculum1, marking a significant step towards broader historical education in Arizona schools.
(AINA) -- The Assyrian Arts Institute (AAI) is an organization founded by Nora Betyousef Lacey in 2017 and claims to support Assyrian arts. AAI has sponsored a few events since its founding, including an Assyrian women's choir.
(AINA) -- On July 12 Iraqi president Abdul Latif Rashid repealed the decree recognizing the appointment of Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako as head of the Chaldean Catholic Church and which appointed him to the office of the waqf (وقف), the endowment which oversees all church property. The details of the events leading up to this action are exhaustively covered in this report by MEMRI.
(AINA) -- On February 21, the Federal Supreme Court of Iraq ruled on a set of cases pertaining to the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) electoral law. The Court declared that the 11 parliamentary reserved seats for minorities were unconstitutional. So too was the KRG's single electoral district model.
During the years of World War I 75% (750,000) of the Assyrian population in the Ottoman Empire was systematically murdered. That genocide of Assyrians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 is a fact, but it has largely been forgotten by the world.
Does your heart soar when you're happy? If you were living in ancient Mesopotamia, you might assign such joyful flights to the liver. Researchers have analysed Mesopotamian texts to see how they described emotions inhabiting different parts of the body. The study, published in iScience, draws on Neo-Assyrian cuneiform texts dating from 934-612 BC.
The Armenians, a population in Western Asia historically native to the Armenian Highlands, were long thought to be descendants of Phrygian settlers from the Balkans. This theory, rooted primarily in the writings of the Greek historian Herodotus, stemmed from his observation that Armenians serving in the Persian army were armed in a manner similar to the Phrygians.