Assyrian people

Assyrian people
[Sūrāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Sūryāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help) / [Āṯūrāyē] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: arc-Latn (help)

Ahiqar File:Kinadshburn.JPG Ashurbanipal Nabonidus Lucian Abgar V File:Bardesan.jpg Bardaisan File:Jefrem Sirin.jpg Ephrem the Syrian Simeon Stylites Severus of Antioch Hunayn bar Ishaq Bukhtishu File:John sulaqa.gif Shimun Sulaqa Hormuzd Rassam Alphonse Mingana Naum Faiq Agha Petros Shimun XXI Benyamin Freydun Atturaya Munir Bashir Ammo Baba Anna Eshoo Rosie Malek Yonan Terrence Malick F. Murray Abraham Kennedy Bakırcıoğlu
Total population
3.3–4.2 million
Regions with significant populations
Iraq	500,000
Syria	400,000
Iran	20,000–60,000
Turkey	15,000–25,100
Lebanon	39,000
Sweden	100,000–120,000
United States	110,807–400,000
Jordan	30,000–150,000
Germany	100,000
Netherlands	60,000
Australia	60,000
Canada	38,000
Russia	10,911–70,000
France	16,000
Belgium	15,000
Switzerland	10,000
Denmark	10,000
United Kingdom	6,700
Greece	6,000
Georgia	3,299
Ukraine	3,143
Italy	3,000
Armenia	2,769
New Zealand	1,683
Azerbaijan	1,500
Kazakhstan	800
Finland	300
Austria	8,000
Languages
Various dialects of Neo-Aramaic
Religion
† Syriac Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Mhallami, Mandeans, Jews, Maronites

The Assyrians (Template:Lang-syr), also known as Aššūrāyu, Āṯūrāyē, Athurai, Assouri, Ashuriyun, Suraye, Suryoye and sometimes in more recent times by theological non-ethnic names, such as: Syriacs, Chaldo-Assyrians, Nestorians and Chaldeans (see names of Syriac Christians), are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in northern Mesopotamia, what was Assyria. They speak, read, and write distinct dialects of Eastern Aramaic exclusive to northern Mesopotamia and its immediate surroundings.

Assyrians trace their ancestry back to the northern region of the Akkadian lands, which would become Assyria between the 24th century BC and 7th century AD. Today that ancient territory is part of several nations: the north of Iraq, part of southeast Turkey, northwest Iran and northeast Syria; the Assyrians are indigenous to these aforementioned regions.

They are a Christian Semitic people, with most following various Eastern Rite churches such as the Assyrian Church of the East and its offshoots, the Chaldean Catholic Church and Ancient Church of the East, as well as the Syriac Orthodox Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church, Assyrian Evangelical Church and Syriac Catholic Church, although a number of Assyrians are atheist or largely non-religious.

Many have migrated to the North America, Caucasus, Australia and Europe during the past century or so. Emigration was triggered by such events as the Assyrian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire during World War I, the Simele massacre in Iraq (1933), the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979), Arab Nationalist Baathist policies in Iraq and Syria, the Al-Anfal Campaign of Saddam Hussein, and to some degree Kurdish nationalist policies in northern Iraq. Most recently, Assyrians in their traditional homeland of northern Iraq and northeastern Syria have been the victims of Islamic terrorism, being specifically targeted by the terrorist organisations of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the al-Nusra Front. In response some Assyrian communities have formed militias in order to defend their towns and villages.

The Iraq War has displaced the regional Assyrian community. Of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled Iraq since the occupation, nearly 40% are Assyrian, although Assyrians comprised around 7% of the pre-war Iraqi population.

History

Main article: History of the Assyrian people

Assyrian continuity

Main article: Assyrian continuity

Assyrians claim that they are the descendants of the peoples that created the great Semitic civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia that absorbed the early Sumerian civilisation, in particular Assyria, Osroene and Adiabene in and around their ancestral Assyrian Homelands in Upper Mesopotamia.

This claim has numerous supporters amongst respected modern scholars, for example Robert D. Biggs. Other eminent historians clearly endorsing Assyrian continuity include; Simo Parpola, Richard N. Frye, H.W.F. Saggs, Giorgi Tsereteli, Eden Naby, Mordechai Nisan, J.A Brinkman, Efram Yildiz, Naum Faiq, Freydun Atturaya, Farid Nazha, Hannibal Travis, Artur Boháč, Robert Rollinger, Joel J. Elias, Fred Aprim, Odisho Gewargis and Sidney Smith.

A number of 19th-century Assyriologists - such as Austen Henry Layard, the ethnic Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam, Horatio Southgate, Henry Rawlinson, and George Percy Badger, also supported Assyrian continuity.

Genetic studies, such as by Cavalli-Sforza, Carlton s. Coon and others, show that modern Assyrians (regardless of Christian denomination,eg; Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church etc) are a homogenous group with a distinctive genetic profile distinguishing them from the neighbouring Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Jews and Iranians, and are the likely descendants of their ancient namesakes.

In a 2006 study of the Y chromosome DNA of six regional populations, including, for comparison, Mesopotamian Assyrians and Levantine Syrians/Syriacs, researchers found that, "the Semitic populations (Assyrians and Syriacs) are very distinct from each other according to both [comparative] axes. This difference, supported also by other methods of comparison, points out the weak genetic affinity between the two populations, indicating different historical origins."

Linguists, such as Geoffrey Khan amongst others, link the modern Assyrians to their ancient ancestors through linguistic continuity, pointing out that the dialects of Eastern Aramaic spoken by Assyrians in northern Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and northwest Iran still retain an East Semitic Akkadian grammatical structure and many Akkadian loan words, indicating that Eastern Aramaic was overlaid upon the earlier and original Akkadian language. In contrast, both the East Semitic Akkadian grammatical structure, and the presence of Akkadian loan words, are wholly absent in the now almost extinct Western Aramaic once spoken by Arameans in Syria. Others point out that the existence of traditional Assyrian given names, family and tribal names have continued from ancient times through to the present day among the Assyrians of northern Iraq, northwest Iran, northeast Syria and southeast Turkey, but these too are absent among Levantine Christians.

A minority of skeptics such as Dr John Joseph still maintain that modern-day Assyrians only acquired the name Assyrian in the later part of the 19th century through British imperial influences, or that ethnic continuity is relatively insignificant or minor.

However, many modern scholars point out that the terms Assyria and Assyrian, together with clear derivatives (for example Syrian/Syriac originally meant only Assyrian), were in continual use to describe the Semites of Northern Mesopotamia from ancient times through to the present day, and existed long before the 19th century.

From a perspective of Historicity, Assyria existed as a nation state from perhaps as early as the 25th century BC until the end of the 7th century BC. After this, it remained a geo-political entity from the 6th century BC through to the mid 7th century AD, where it was still known as Assyria and its inhabitants as Assyrians. Names deriving from Assurayu were used throughout this period, including Assur, Athura, Assyria Provincia, Assuristan and Ator. The term Syria was used by the Cilecians and Greeks, and until the Seleucid Empire referred only to Assyria, and not to Aram/The Levant (see Name of Syria). Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC clearly states that those people called Syrians by the Greeks, are in fact known as Assyrians by those in the east, and this fact is corroborated by Assyrian and Achaemenid records of the time.

The ancient Mesopotamian religion distinct to Assyrians remained strong until the 4th century AD, and lived on until the 10th century AD, with the very last traces being found as late as the 17th century AD.

The Arab chronicler Ibn al-Nadim, writing in the 11th century AD, describes the Semitic Christians of northern Mesopotamia and the Jazeera as Ashuriyun (Assyrians).

Michael the Syrian, writing in the 12th century AD also states that those people called Syrians who live in and around Mesopotamia are in fact Assyrians, and those called Syrians who live in The Levant are in fact Arameans.

The city of Assur was still continuously occupied by Assyrians until the 14th century AD, and its abandonment coincides directly with the massacres of Assyrian Christians by Tamurlane.

Assyria still retained the name Ator (Assyria) as an ecclesiastical province long after it had been dissolved as a geo-political entity.

In the mid 16th century AD, those Assyrians who entered communion with the Catholic Church formed The Church of Assyria and Mosul, showing a clear continuation of Assyrian identity. This was only changed by Rome to the ethnic and geographical misnomer of the Chaldean Catholic Church in 1683 AD

However, in the 17th century AD Pope Paul V clearly refers to the Christians of northern Mesopotamia as Assyrians.

Giorgi Tsereteli points out that Georgian and Armenian records continued to refer to the Semites of northern Mesopotamia as Assyrians, from ancient times through to the modern era.

George Percy Badger, travelling through Upper Mesopotamia in the period before the mid to late 19th century AD archaeological discoveries of ancient Assyria, describes coming upon a Christian people calling themselves Assyrians, and bearing distinct Assyrian names, who were also known as Assuri by their Armenian and Kurdish neighbours.

A number of historians, such as Richard Nelson Frye, Hannibal Travis, Artur Boháč, Mordechai Nisan, Simo Parpola, Efram Yildiz and Eden Naby, point out that the Assyrians were originally called only by the true ethnic term Assyrians, and that names without any ethnic meaning or connotations whatsoever, and that were applied to them only very much later, such as; Nestorian, East Syrian, Syriac Christian, Chaldean Catholic and Jacobite, were imposed upon the Assyrians by outside sources, usually Western theologians and churches, and that these misnomers have served only to confuse Assyrian identity and divide the Assyrian people.

Ancient history

Main article: Assyria

Assyria (green), the ancient homeland of the Assyrian people.

The Assyrian people can trace their ethnic and cultural origins to the indigenous population of pre-Islamic and pre-Arab Mesopotamia, (in particular Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Mari, Eshnunna, Adiabene, Osroene, Hatra and the geo-political province of Assyria under Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid rule) since before the time of the Akkadian Empire.

Mesopotamia was originally dominated by the language isolate speaking Sumerians (from at least 3500 BC), and the native East Semitic Semites, later to be collectively known as Akkadians lived alongside them from circa 3000 BC, with evidence of the Akkadian language appearing in the 30th century BC, and Akkadian-ruled city-states first emerging circa 2800 BC.

Cities such as Ashur, Nineveh and Arbela appear to have been established during the 27th and 26th centuries BC, however the region was under Sumerian control, and a number of Sumerian kings list northern Mesopotamia as paying tribute to them.

According to the Assyrian King List the earliest Assyrian king was a 25th-century BC ruler named Tudiya, who was recorded as having traded with the fellow east Semitic speaking kingdom of Ebla in north east Syria. Early Assyrian kings of the 25th and 24th centuries BC appear to have been pastoralist rulers, rather than urban kings based in cities.

From 2335 BC the Akkadian speakers gained domination over the Sumerians under Sargon the Great who founded the world's first empire, the Akkadian Empire, based in the city of Akkad in central Mesopotamia. The Assyrians, like all Akkadian speakers, were incorporated into the empire, with their kings paying tribute to Sargon and his successors. The East Semitic language spoken by the native Semites of Mesopotamia was named after Akkad, although evidence of the language preceded Akkad by some five centuries or so.

By the mid 22nd century BC the Akkadian Empire had collapsed, and Assyrian kings were once more fully independent, with southern Mesopotamia overrun by Gutians. The Neo-Sumerian Empire based in Ur arose in the late 22nd century BC, and the southern portion of Assyria was conquered, with the north remaining in Assyrian hands. The Assyrians had shrugged off Sumerian domination by the mid 21st Century BC, and it was from circa 2050 BC that Assyrian rulers became fully urbanised, and began to leave written inscriptions regarding their rule in Ashur.

By approximately 2000 BC, the Sumerian race appears to have been wholly absorbed by the Semitic Akkadian population.

The Mesopotamian people were split into a number of nations: Assyria in the north, and Isin, Larsa, Eshnunna and others in the south.

Assyria became a strong nation with the Old Assyrian Empire (circa 2035–1750 BC) century BC, founding colonies in Asia Minor and The Levant, and intervening on southern Mesopotamia to protect their fellow Akkadian speakers from incursions by Elamites from the East and Amorites from the West.

In the 20th and 19th centuries BC a new wave of North west Semitic migrants, the Canaanite-speaking Amorites, entered Mesopotamia from the west (modern northern and eastern Syria), and after being prevented from doing so by powerful Assyrian kings such as Ilushuma, Erishum I and Sargon I for a time, eventually usurped the thrones of the Akkadian states of Isin, Eshnunna and Larsa. These Amorites also founded a patchwork of small petty kingdoms, one of these small kingdoms, founded in 1894 BC, included the then minor administrative town of Babylon, although the first four Amorite kings did not deign to call themselves king of Babylon at all, and the fifth only once, due to its then unimportant status.

Eventually, Shamshi-Adad I an Amorite ruler from north eastern Syria, usurped the Assyrian throne in 1809 BC from Erishum II. The Amorite ruler expanded Assyrian imperial power from the late 19th century BC until the mid-18th century BC. However, in the early 18th century BC under Hammurabi, the sixth Amorite ruler of the land in which Babylon lay, Babylon rose from a small town based in a new and weak state into a major city and empire. It is from the mid 18th century only that southern Mesopotamia came to be known as Babylonia, and from the reign of Hammurabi that Babylon became worthy of kingship.

After a protracted struggle, Assyria and its Amorite kings were subjugated by the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian empire proved short lived however, and began to rapidly collapse after the death of Hammurabi. Amorite rule in Assyria proved equally short lived, the Amorites and Babylonians were completely driven from Assyria and parts of central Mesopotamia by native Assyrian Akkadian speaking kings named Puzur-Sin and Adasi in the mid-18th century BC, and from the far south of Mesopotamia by the Akkadian speaking Sealand Dynasty. However they eventually blended into the population of Babylonia in south-central Mesopotamia, where they maintained rule over a once more small and weak Babylon until 1595 BC, until being overthrown by the Indo-European speaking Hittite Empire after which Babylon was conquered by the language isolate speaking Kassites from the Zagros Mountains of north western Ancient Iran, who were to rule Babylonia for over five centuries.

After further successful appropriations of Amorite-Babylonian territory under Bel-bani (1700–1691 BC) Assyria entered a quiet, peaceful and prosperous period between 1690 and 1440 BC, untroubled by Kassite Babylonia, the Hittite Empire, the Hurri-Mitanni Empire or the Amorites of the Levant. However, after entering an alliance with Egypt against the Hurri-Mitanni empire, Assyria briefly found itself subjugated by the Hurri-Mitanni between circa 1440 and 1393 BC.

Beginning with the reign of Ashur-uballit I (1365–1330 BC), Assyria then once again became a major imperial power from 1365 BC until 1020 BC with the Middle Assyrian Empire, destroying the Hurri-Mitanni empire, annexing most of the Hittite empire, forcing the Egyptians to withdraw from much of the Near East, defeating the Elamites, Urartians, Arameans and Phrygians, and conquering Kassite Babylonia, with Tukulti-Ninurta I (1244–1207 BC) becoming the first native Mesopotamian to sit on the Babylonian throne.

The Bronze age collapse (1200 BC to 900 BC), with its associated mass movements of peoples and destruction or upheaval of long established nations, which affected much of the Near East, Ancient Iran, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, east Mediterranean, Egypt, North Africa and the Balkans, appeared to have little impact upon Assyria, which continued its expansionist policies regardless.

However, after a period of civil war, Assyria went into another quiet period from the late 11th century BC to late 10th century BC.

In the 11th century BC a new influx of West Semitic speaking Semites into East Semitic-speaking Babylonia from The Levant took place, with the arrival of the Arameans and Suteans, followed in the late 10th or early 9th century by Chaldeans. These migrant West Semitic Arameans, Suteans and Chaldeans originally set up small kingdoms and tribal regions within Babylonia, whose native East Semitic speaking kings were too weak to exercise control. However, they became culturally and politically Akkadianized, and they ethnically intermixed and blended in with the native Akkadian population of southern Mesopotamia.

It was not until the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–608 BC) and the forced deportations of Arameans into Assyria itself that the Assyrians and Babylonians began to speak Aramaic. This was an Akkadian-infused Mesopotamian version of the language of the Aramaean tribes who had been assimilated into the Assyrian Empire and Mesopotamia, introduced as the lingua franca of the Assyrian Empire by Tiglath-pileser III in the mid 8th century BC, and whose descendant dialects survive to this day. Mass relocations of other peoples were enforced by Assyrian kings of the Neo-Assyrian period, and it was during the period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire that many Israelite Jews were deported to Assyria and a fair proportion of these were absorbed into the general population.

The Neo-Assyrian Empire (911 BC–605 BC) saw a massive expansion of Assyrian power: Assyria became the center of the greatest empire the world had yet seen, with Egypt, Babylonia, Chaldea, Persia, Elam, Media, Gutium, Parthia, Mannea, Israel, Judah, Aramea (modern Syria), Phonecia/Canaan, Phrygia, Cilicia, Commagene, Cappadocia and much of Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Neo-Hittite states, Corduene, Cyprus, Urartu, Armenia and parts of the Caucasus, Dilmun, Samaria, Edom, Moab, Ammon and Arabia brought under Assyrian control, Lydia paying tribute, the Nubians, Ethiopians and Kushites defeated and driven from Egypt and the Scythians and Cimmerians subjugated.

It was in the mid 800's BC that Assyrian annals mention the Arabs and Chaldeans in written historical record for the very first time.

However, Assyria became riven by anarchy and a series of crippling civil wars from 626 BC, allowing the migrant west Semitic Chaldeans who had settled in the far south east of Mesopotamia in the late 900's or early 800's BC to seize the throne of Babylon in 620 BC, with the support of the Babylonians themselves, in the confusion. Other subject peoples, most notably the Medes, Persians, Scythians and Cimmerians also broke away. Eventually, a coalition of their own Babylonian relations, together with other former subject peoples; the Chaldeans, Medes, Persians, Parthians, Scythians and Cimmerians, attacked a civil war weakened Assyria in unison in 615 BC, bringing its downfall by 605 BC.

After the fall of Nineveh

Main articles: Athura, Asuristan, and Adiabene

Following the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire by 605 BC, the population of the Assyria came under the control of their Babylonian relatives until 539 BC. Although initially ruled by yet another foreign dynasty, that of the Chaldeans, the last rulers of Babylonia, Nabonidus and his son and regent, Belshazzar, were from Assyria. After their rule, the Chaldean tribe from the far south east of Mesopotamia who had usurped the throne of Babylon from the Assyrians in 620 BC, disappeared from the pages of history, the Achaemenid Empire (and those empires which followed it) not retaining a province called Chaldea, and not mentioning an ethnic group called Chaldeans in their extensive records.

From 538 BC, Assyria, (which remained a political and named entity) was under Persian Achaemenid, Macedonian, Seleucid, Parthian Arascid, Roman and Sassanid rule for seven centuries undergoing Christianization during this time.

Assyria flourished during the Achaemenid period (from 539–323 BC) (see Achaemenid Assyria) as Athura, with Assyrian soldiers becoming a major source of manpower for the Achaemenid armies and its farmers providing a breadbasket for the empire. Assyrians are also attested as having many important administrative posts within the empire, and the Mesopotamian Aramaic dialect of the Assyrian Empire and its administrative structure were retained by the Achaemenids. The Persians, having spent 300 years under Assyrian control, saw themselves as successors to the great Assyrian kings, and Achaemenid Art and Architecture bear strong Assyrian influence. Assyria was even strong enough to launch two full-scale rebellions against the empire in the late 6th century BC.

Although Assyrian cities such as Kalhu and Nineveh remained largely in ruins, others such as Ashur, Arbela, Guzana, Arrapkha and Harran flourished during this period.

The Seleucid empire succeeded that of the Achaemenids in 323 BC, from this point Greek became the official language of the empire at the expense of Mesopotamian Aramaic. The native populace of Assyria were not Hellenised however, as is attested by the survival of native language, culture and religion. The province flourished much as it had under the Achaemenids for the next century, however by the late 3rd century BC Assyria became a battleground between the Seleucid Greeks and the Parthians but remained largely in Greek hands until the reign of Mithridates I (circa 150 BC) when it fell to the Parthians.

During the Seleucid period the term Assyria was altered to read Syria, an Indo-Anatolian and later Greek form of the original name Aššūrāyu that had been in use since the 8th or 9th century BC among some western Assyrian colonies, and for many centuries had referred specifically and only to the Assyrians and Assyria. The Seleucid Greeks also included Aramea to the west as part of Syria (read Assyria) as it had been an Assyrian colony for centuries. When they lost control of Assyria proper to the Parthians (which is northern Mesopotamia, north east Syria and part of south east Anatolia), they retained the name but applied it only to Aramea (i.e., The Levant), which they still retained control of. This created a situation where both the Assyrians from Assyria, and the Assyrians in the Levant, were referred to as Syrians by the Greco-Roman civilisations, causing the later Syrian Vs Assyrian naming controversy.

It was during the Seleucid era that Babylon was finally abandoned and fell into ruin.

Assyria was still named Athura during the Parthian era. The Parthians appeared to have exercised only loose control at times, leading to the virtual resurrection of Assyria with the native kingdom of Adiabene 15 BC to 117AD. Its rulers were converts from Mesopotamian religion to Judaism and later Christianity, and it retained Mesopotamian Aramaic as its spoken tongue.

Adiabene, like the rest of northern Mesopotamia was conquered by Trajan in 117 AD, and the region was pointedly still named Assyria by the Romans. Church of the East Christianity, as well as Gnostic sects such as the Mandeans and Manicheanism took hold between the 1st and 3rd Centuries AD, and Assyria became the birthplace of Syriac Christianity.

However, a number of Assyrians were conscripted into the Roman Army, with many serving in the region of Hadrians Wall in Ancient Britain, and inscriptions in Aramaic, made by Assyrian (and Aramean) soldiers have been discovered in northern England dating from the 2nd century AD.

The Parthians regained control of the region a few years later, and retained the name Assyria (Athura). Other small kingdoms had also sprung up in the region, namely Osrhoene and Hatra, which were Syriac speaking and at least partly Assyrian. Assyrian identity appears to have remained strong, with the 2nd-century writer and theologian Tatian stating clearly that he is an Assyrian, as does the satirist Lucian in the same period.

The city of Ashur and its surrounds also appears to have been once more independent or largely autonomous during the Parthian period, with temples being dedicated to the national god of the Assyrians (Ashur) into the second half of the 3rd century AD, before it was once again conquered by the invading Sassanids in 256 AD.

The Sassanid Empire recognised the land as Assyria, using the name Assuristan. Assyrians still seem to have retained a distinct identity and a degree of local autonomy in the Sassanid period, during the 4th century the region around Nineveh was governed by a certain local Assyrian king, who was pointedly named Sennacherib II after his ancient ancestor, who established the Mar Behnam monastery in memory of his son.

In 341 AD, the Zoroastrian Shapur II ordered a massacre of Christians in the Persian Empire, most of whom were Assyrians and Armenians. During the persecution, about 1,150 Christians were martyred under Shapur II.

Under the nineteen year reign of Yazdegerd II, over 153,000 Assyrians were executed in Kirkuk (close to the ancient Assyrian city of Kalhu/Calah), then part of the Persian empire.

The Sassanids welcomed followers of Nestorian Christianity into their empire in the 5th century AD, following the Nestorian Schism in the rival Byzantine Empire. This led to many Medieval Europeans inaccurately labeling Assyrian people and followers of Eastern Rite Christianity in general as Nestorians, despite the fact that the Assyrian Church of the East was over 400 years older than the Nestorian Church, and doctrinally distinct. There was however some synthesis between the two churches. This term persisted amongst some Europeans into the 20th century, but is now regarded as historically inaccurate and defunct, both in a theological and ethnic sense.

Assyria as an entity remained recognized as such by its inhabitants, Sassanid rulers and neighboring peoples until after the Arab Muslim conquests of the second half of the 7th century AD, after which the Assyrians gradually became both an ethnic minority and a religious minority.

Arab conquest

After the Arab Islamic invasion and conquest of the 7th century AD, Assyria as a province was dissolved, but the Assyrians themselves survived, being referred to as Ashuriyun by the Arabs. Assyrians initially experienced some periods of religious and cultural freedom interspersed with periods of severe religious and ethnic persecution. As heirs to ancient Mesopotamian civilisation, they also contributed hugely to the Arab Islamic Civilization during the Umayyads and the Abbasids by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterwards to Arabic. They also excelled in philosophy, science and theology (such as Tatian, Bar Daisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, Toma bar Yacoub etc.) and the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians such as the long serving Bukhtishu dynasty.

However, non-Islamic proselyting was punishable by death under Sharia law, which led the Assyrians into preaching in Transoxania, Central Asia, India, Mongolia and China where they established numerous churches. The Church of the East was considered to be one of the major Christian powerhouses in the world, alongside Latin Christianity in Europe and the Byzantine Empire.

From the 7th century AD onwards Mesopotamia saw a steady influx of Arabs, Kurds and other Iranian peoples, and later Turkic peoples, and the indigenous population retaining native Mesopotamian culture, identity, language, religion and customs were steadily marginalised and gradually became a minority in their own homeland.

Although Eastern Rite Christianity had become the religion of the vast majority of Assyrians between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, remnants of the ancient Mesopotamian religion followed by their ancestors survived in some regions of what had been Assyria as late as the 10th Century AD.

The process of marginalisation was largely completed by the massacres of indigenous Assyrian Christians and other non-Muslims in Mesopotamia and its surrounds by Tamerlane the Mongol in the 14th century AD, and it was from this point that the ancient Assyrian capital of Ashur was finally abandoned by Assyrians.

However, many Assyrian Christians survived the various massacres and pogroms, and resisted the process of Arabization and Islamification, retaining a distinct Mesopotamian identity, Mesopotamian Aramaic language and written script. The modern Assyrians or Chaldo-Assyrians of today are descendants of the indigenous inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and in particular Assyria, who refused to be converted to Islam or be culturally and linguistically Arabized.

Celebration at a Syriac Orthodox monastery in Mosul, Ottoman Syria, early 20th century.

Culturally, ethnically and linguistically distinct from, although both quite influencing on, and quite influenced by, their neighbours in the Middle East—the Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Turks, Jews and Armenians—the Assyrians have endured much hardship throughout their recent history as a result of religious and ethnic persecution.

Mongol and Turkic rule

The region came under the control of the Mongol Empire after the fall of Baghdad in 1258. The Mongol khans were sympathetic with Christians and didn't harm them. The most prominent among them was probably Isa, a diplomat, astrologer, and head of the Christian affairs in the Yuan Dynasty in East Asia. He spent some time in Persia under the Ilkhans. The 14th century AD massacres of Timur in particular, devastated the Assyrian people. Timur's massacres and pillages of all that was Christian drastically reduced their existence. At the end of the reign of Timur, the Assyrian population had almost been eradicated in many places. Toward the end of the thirteenth century, Bar Hebraeus (or Bar-Abraya), the noted Assyrian scholar and hierarch, found "much quietness" in his diocese in Mesopotamia. Syria’s diocese, he wrote, was "wasted."

The region was later controlled by Turkic tribes such as the Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu. Seljuq and Arab emirate sought to extend their rule over the region as well.

Ottoman rule

See also: Massacres of Badr Khan and Massacres of Diyarbakir (1895)

Assyrian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia

During the Ottoman period a religious Schism occurred among the Assyrian people. In the mid 16th century AD a number of Assyrians, dissatisfied with the leadership of the Assyrian Church of the East, entered into communion with the Roman Catholic Church, after at first being refused entry into the Syriac Orthodox Church. This new church was called The Church of Assyria and Mosul in 1553 AD, however in 1683 AD the name was changed by Rome to the Chaldean Catholic Church, despite none of its north Mesopotamian Assyrian adherents having any historic, geographic, ethnic, or cultural links to the long extinct Chaldean tribe of the far south east of Mesopotamia, who had disappeared from the pages of history over 2,100 years previously. It is believed that the term Chaldean Catholic arose due to a Catholic misinterpretation of Ur Kasdim (according to Jewish tradition the birthplace of Abraham in Northern Mesopotamia) as meaning Ur of the Chaldees, in reality the term Kasdim did not mean Chaldean.

The Ottomans further secured their control over Mesopotamia and Syria in the 16th century. Non-Muslims were organised into religion-based millets. Syriac Christians in general, however, were often considered one millet alongside Armenians until the 19th century, when Assyrian followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church and Chaldean Catholic Church gained separate millets.

In the 1840s many of the unarmed Assyrian civilians living in the mountains of Hakkari in the south eastern corner of the Ottoman Empire were massacred by the Kurdish emirs of Hakkari and Bohtan with Ottoman army support.

Another major massacre of Assyrians (and Armenians) in the Ottoman Empire occurred between 1894 and 1897 AD by Turkish troops and their Kurdish allies during the rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The motives for these massacres were an attempt to reassert Pan-Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, resentment at the comparative wealth of the ancient indigenous Christian communities, and a fear that they would attempt to secede from the tottering Ottoman Empire.

Assyrians were massacred in Diyarbakir, Hasankeyef, Sivas and other parts of Anatolia, by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. These attacks caused the death of over thousands of Assyrians and the forced "Ottomanisation" of the inhabitants of 245 villages. The Turkish troops looted the remains of the Assyrian settlements and these were later stolen and occupied by Kurds. Unarmed Assyrian women and children were raped, tortured and murdered.

World War I and aftermath

Main articles: Assyrian Genocide and Assyrian struggle for independence

Painting by Leonardo de Mango, showing the massacre of the Assyrian population of Siirt.

The most significant recent persecution against the Assyrian population was the Assyrian genocide which occurred during the First World War. Between 275,000 and 300,000 Assyrians were estimated to have been slaughtered by the armies of the Ottoman Empire and their Kurdish allies, totalling up to two-thirds of the entire Assyrian population at the time. This led to a large-scale migration of Turkish-based Assyrian people into countries such as Syria, Iran, and Iraq (where they were to suffer further violent assaults at the hands of the Arabs and Kurds), as well as other neighbouring countries in and around the Middle East such as Armenia, Georgia and Russia.

In reaction to the Assyrian Genocide and lured by British and Russian promises of an independent nation, the Assyrians led by Agha Petros and Malik Khoshaba of the Bit-Tyari tribe, fought alongside the allies against Ottoman forces in an Assyrian war of independence. Despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned the Assyrians fought successfully, scoring a number of victories over the larger forces of the Turks and Kurds. This situation continued until their Russian allies left the war, and Armenian resistance broke, leaving the Assyrians surrounded, isolated and cut off from lines of supply.

Modern history

Main article: Simele Massacre

The area of Iraq with the greatest concentration of Assyrians is located in the Nineveh plains region in Northern Iraq where Nineveh was located. This area is known as the "Assyrian Triangle."

The majority of Assyrian living in what is today modern Turkey were forced to flee, and join their brethren in northern Iraq and north eastern Syria after the Assyrian Genocide.

The Assyrian Levies were founded by the British in 1928, with ancient Assyrian military rankings such as Rab-shakeh, Rab-talia and Tartan, being revived for the first time in millennia for this force. The Assyrians were prized by the British rulers for their fighting qualities, loyalty, bravery and discipline, and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs and Kurds, and defend the borders with Turkey and Iran.

During World War II, eleven Assyrian companies saw action in Palestine and another four served in Cyprus. The Parachute Company was attached to the Royal Marine Commando and were involved in fighting in Albania, Italy and Greece. The Assyrian Levies played a major role in defeating the pro-Nazi Arab Iraqi forces at the battle of Habbaniya in 1941.

However, this cooperation with the British was viewed with suspicion by some leaders of the newly formed Kingdom of Iraq. The tension reached its peak shortly after the formal declaration of independence when hundreds of unarmed Assyrian civilians were massacred during the Simele Massacre by the Iraqi Army in August 1933. The events lead to the expulsion of Shimun XXIII Eshai the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East to the United States where he resided until his death in 1975.

During the 1940s and 50's, a number of Assyrians (initially mainly in northwestern Iran), hitherto members of the Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean Catholic Church began to convert to Protestant Christianity, founding the Assyrian Pentecostal Church.

After World War II and during the 1950s and early '60s, Assyrians enjoyed a period of peace, prosperity and tolerance. However the Ba'ath Party seized power in Iraq and Syria in 1963, which introduced laws that aimed at suppressing the Assyrian national identity, the Arab Nationalist policies of the Ba'athists included renewed attempts to "Arabize" the indigenous Assyrians. The giving of traditional Assyrian/Akkadian names and Aramaic/Syriac versions of Biblical names was banned, Assyrian schools, political parties, churches and literature were repressed and Assyrians were heavily pressured into identifying as Arab Christians. The Ba'athist regime refused to recognise Assyrians as an ethnic group, and encouraged and incited division among Assyrians themselves on religious grounds (e.g.; Assyrian Church of the East vs Chaldean Catholic).

The al-Anfal Campaign of 1986–1989 in Iraq, although predominantly aimed at Kurds, led to over 2,000 Assyrians being murdered through its gas campaigns; over 31 towns and villages and 25 Assyrian monasteries and churches were razed to the ground. Apart from those Assyrians murdered; others were deported to large cities, and their land, property and homes were stolen by local Arabs and Kurds.

21st century

Main articles: Assyrian exodus from Iraq and 2008 attacks on Christians in Mosul

Assyrian wedding, Belgium

Since the 2003 Iraq War social unrest and anarchy have resulted in the persecution of Assyrians in Iraq, mostly by Islamic extremists,(both Shia and Sunni), and to some degree by Kurdish nationalists. In places such as Dora, a neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, the majority of its Assyrian population has either fled abroad or to northern Iraq, or has been murdered.

Islamic resentment over the United States' occupation of Iraq, and incidents such as the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons and the Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy, have resulted in Arab and Kurdish Muslims attacking Assyrian Christian communities. Since the start of the Iraq war, at least 46 churches and monasteries have been bombed.

The Syriac Military Council is an Assyrian/Syriac military organization in Syria. The establishment of the organisation was announced on 8 January 2013. According to the Syriac Military Council, the goal of the organisation is to stand up for the national rights of Assyrians and to protect them in Syria. It intends to work together with the other communities in Syria to change the current regime of Bashar al-Assad, but is vehemently opposed to Islamist rebel groups. The organisation fights alongside the Kurdish YPG in the densely populated Assyrian areas of the Governorates of Aleppo.

Assyrian regions in the north east of Syria have been targeted by jihadists of ISIL and members of the FSA, and as a result, have formed militias to defend their towns, villages and communities.

In August 2014, over 200,000 of Iraq's 250,00-300,000 Assyrians were forced from their 4,500 year-old Assyrian homeland in the Nineveh region under the threat of a growing and violent terrorist organisation, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, IS) spray painted the letter 'N' in Arabic on all Assyrian and Armenian Christian homes and gave them three options: convert to Islam, pay a hefty jizya tax, or die by the sword. There have been multiple protests around the world including in the United States, Australia, and many parts of Europe in an attempt to inform people of the brutal religious and ethnic cleansing being perpetrated upon unarmed men, women and children by heavily armed Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Assyrian Christians and Yezidi have been targeted directly since July 2014.

In response to these assaults, the Assyrians of northern Iraq have followed their brethren in northeast Syria in forming armed militias to defend Assyrian sections of cities, as well as Assyrian towns, villages and farmsteads.

Demographics

Assyrian world population.

  more than 500,000

  100,000–500,000

  50,000–100,000

  10,000–50,000

  less than 10,000

Homeland

Main article: Assyrian Homeland

The Assyrians are considered to be one of the indigenous people of northern Iraq. Their homeland is located in the area around the Tigris and Euphrates in modern-day northern Iraq. Assyrians are traditionally from Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and northeastern Syria. There still remains a sizable Assyrian population in Syria, where an estimated 400,000 Assyrians live.

In Tur Abdin, Turkey, known as a homeland for Assyrians, there are only 3,000 left, and an estimated 25,000 in all of Turkey. After the 1915 Assyrian genocide many Assyrians also fled into Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, Iraq and into the Western world.

The Assyrian people can be divided along geographic, linguistic, and denominational lines, the three main groups being:

• the "Western" or "Jacobite" group of Syria, and central eastern Anatolia (Syriac Orthodox Church & Syriac Catholic Church); Many of these now largely speak Arabic.
• the "Eastern" group of Iraq, northeast Syria south eastern Turkey, northwest Iran and Armenia (Assyrian Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East);
• the "Chaldean Christian" or "Chaldean Catholic"/Chaldo-Assyrian group of northern Iraq, northern Iran, and south eastern Anatolia (Chaldean Catholic Church); ethnic Assyrian followers of the Chaldean Catholic church make up the majority of Iraqi Christian population since the conversion to Catholicism from the Assyrian Church of the East in the 17th and 18th centuries. The latter two groups are Eastern Aramaic speaking Assyrian communities.

Persecution

Due to their Christian faith and ethnicity, the Assyrians have been persecuted since their adoption of Christianity. During the reign of Yazdegerd I, Christians in Persia were viewed with suspicion as potential Roman subversives, resulting in persecutions while at the same time promoting Nestorian Christianity as a buffer between the Churches of Rome and Persia. Persecutions and attempts to impose Zoroastrianism continued during the reign of Yazdegerd II.

During the era of Turco-Mongol rule under Timur, there was indiscriminate slaughter of tens of thousands of Assyrians and destruction of the Assyrian population of northwestern Iran and central and northern Iran.

More recent persecutions since the 19th century include the Massacres of Badr Khan, the Massacres of Diyarbakır (1895), the Adana Massacre, the Assyrian Genocide, the Simele Massacre, the al-Anfal Campaign, and the Sadad Massacre.

Diaspora

Since the Assyrian Genocide, many Assyrians have fled their homelands for a more safe and comfortable life in the West. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the Assyrian population in the Middle East has decreased dramatically. As of today there are more Assyrians in Europe, North America, and Australia than in their former homeland.

A total of 550,000 Assyrians live in Europe. Large Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac diaspora communities can be found in Germany, Sweden, the USA, and Australia. The largest Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac diaspora communities are those of Södertälje, Chicago, Detroit and Sydney.

Identity

Further information: Assyrian nationalism, Aramaeanism, Arabization, and Turkification

Assyrian flag (since 1968)

Assyrians are divided among several churches (see below). They speak, and many can read and write, dialects of Neo-Aramaic.

In certain areas of the Assyrian homeland, identity within a community depends on a person's village of origin (see List of Assyrian villages) or Christian denomination rather than their ethnic commonality, for instance Chaldean Catholic.

Today, Assyrians and other minority ethnic groups in the Middle East, feel pressure to identify as "Arabs", "Turks" and "Kurds". Those Assyrians in Syria who live outside of the traditionally and historically Assyrian northeastern region of the country are sometimes feel socially pressured to identify as Arabs, due to Arab nationalist policies of the Baathist government.

Neo-Aramaic exhibits remarkably conservative features compared with Imperial Aramaic, and the earliest European visitors to northern Mesopotamia in modern times encountered a people called "Assyrians", "Assouri" and "Ashuriyun", and people with ancient Assyrian names such as Sargon, Sennacherib, Ashur and Semiramis. The Assyrians manifested a remarkable degree of linguistic, religious, and cultural continuity from the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire through to the time of the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Parthians through periods of medieval Byzantine, Arab, Persian, and Ottoman rule.

Assyrian nationalism emphatically connects Modern Assyrians to the population of ancient Mesopotamia and the Neo-Assyrian Empire. A historical basis of this sentiment was disputed by a few early historians, but receives strong support from modern Assyriologists like H.W.F. Saggs, Robert D. Biggs, Giorgi Tsereteli and Simo Parpola, and Iranologists like Richard Nelson Frye. Nineteenth century orientalists such as Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam also support this view. This controversy does not appear to exist in parts of the region however, as Armenian, Georgian, Russian, Persian and some Arab records have always referred to Assyrians as Assyrians.

Self-designation

Main article: Names of Syriac Christians

The communities of indigenous pre-Arab Neo-Aramaic-speaking people of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Turkey and Lebanon and the surrounding areas advocate different terms for ethnic self-designation.

• "Assyrians", after the ancient Assyria, advocated by followers of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, most followers of the Chaldean Catholic Church and Assyrian Protestants. ("Eastern Assyrians"), and some communities of the Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic ("Western Assyrians"). Those identifying with Assyria, and with Mesopotamia in general, tend to be from Iraq, northeastern Syria; southeastern Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Georgia; southern Russia and Azerbaijan. It is likely that those from this region are indeed of Assyrian/Mesopotamian heritage as they are clearly of pre-Arab and pre-Islamic stock. Furthermore, there is no historical evidence or proof to suggest the indigenous Mesopotamians were wiped out; Assyria existed as a specifically named region until the second half of the 7th century AD. Most speak Mesopotamian dialects of Neo-Aramaic.
• "Chaldo-Assyrians", is a term used by the Iraqi government to designate the indigenous Aramaic speaking Christians of Iraq. It intrinsically acknowledges that the terms Assyrian and Chaldean refer to the same ethnic group. Some Assyrians use this term to defuse arguments over naming along denominational lines.
• "Chaldeans", after ancient Chaldea, advocated by a minority of followers of the Chaldean Catholic Church who are mainly based in the United States. This is mainly a denominational rather than ethnic term, though some Chaldean Catholics espouse a distinct Chaldean ethnic identity. These are exactly the same people as the Assyrians, both having the same culture and originating from the same lands. The Chaldean Catholics were all originally Assyrian members of the Assyrian Church of the East from northern Mesopotamia. From the mid 16th century, some groups of Assyrians entered communion with Rome. Rome originally named this new church as The Church of Assyria and Mosul, but in 1681 AD renamed it The Chaldean Catholic Church, from whence the modern name came.
• "Syriacs," advocated by some followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, Syriac Catholic Church and to a much lesser degree Maronite Church. Those self identifying as Syriacs tend to be from western, northwestern, southern and central Syria as well as south central Turkey. The term Syriac is the subject of some controversy, as it is generally accepted by most scholars that it is a Luwian and Greek corruption of Assyrian. The discovery of the Çineköy inscription seems to settle conclusively in favour of Assyria being the origin of the terms Syria and Syriac. For this reason, some Assyrians accept the term Syriac as well as Assyrian. However, Poseidonios (ca. 135 BC - 51 BC), from the Syrian Apamea, was a Greek Stoic philosopher, politician, astronomer, geographer, historian, and teacher who says that the Syriacs call themselves Arameans.
• "Arameans", after the ancient Aram-Naharaim, advocated by some followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church in western, northwestern, southern and central Syria as well as south central Turkey. The term Aramean is sometimes expanded to "Syriac-Aramean".

In addition, Western Media often makes no mention of any ethnic identity of the Christian people of the region and simply call them Christians, Iraqi Christians, Iranian Christians, Syrian Christians, Lebanese Christians, Turkish Christians, etc. This label is rejected by Assyrians/Chaldeans/Syriacs since it erroneously implies no difference other than theological with the Muslim Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Iranians and Azeris of the region.

Assyrian vs Syrian naming controversy

As early as the 8th century BC Luwian and Cilician subject rulers referred to their Assyrian overlords as Syrian, a western Indo-European bastardisation of the true term Assyrian. This corruption of the name took hold in the Hellenic lands to the west of the old Assyrian Empire, thus during Greek Seleucid rule from 323 BC the name Assyria was altered to Syria, and this term was also applied to Aramea to the west which had been an Assyrian colony. When the Seleucids lost control of Assyria to the Parthians they retained the corrupted term (Syria), applying it to ancient Aramea, while the Parthians called Assyria "Assuristan," a Parthian form of the original name. It is from this period that the Syrian vs Assyrian controversy arises. Today it is accepted by the majority of scholars that the Medieval, Renaissance and Victorian term Syriac when used to describe the indigenous Christians of Mesopotamia and its immediate surrounds in effect means Assyrian.

The modern terminological problem goes back to colonial times, but it became more acute in 1946, when with the independence of Syria, the adjective Syrian referred to an independent state. The controversy isn't restricted to exonyms like English "Assyrian" vs. "Aramaean", but also applies to self-designation in Neo-Aramaic, the minority "Aramaean" faction endorses both Sūryāyē ܣܘܪܝܝܐ and Ārāmayē ܐܪܡܝܐ, while the majority "Assyrian" faction insists on Āṯūrāyē ܐܬܘܪܝܐ but also accepts Sūryāyē.

Alqosh, located in the midst of Assyrian contemporary civilization.

The question of ethnic identity and self-designation is sometimes connected to the scholarly debate on the etymology of "Syria". The question has a long history of academic controversy, but majority mainstream opinion currently strongly favours that Syria is indeed ultimately derived from the Assyrian term 𒀸𒋗𒁺 𐎹 Aššūrāyu. Meanwhile, some scholars has disclaimed the theory of Syrian being derived from Assyrian as "simply naive", and detracted its importance to the naming conflict.

Rudolf Macuch points out that the Eastern Neo-Aramaic press initially used the term "Syrian" (suryêta) and only much later, with the rise of nationalism, switched to "Assyrian" (atorêta). According to Tsereteli, however, a Georgian equivalent of "Assyrians" appears in ancient Georgian, Armenian and Russian documents. This correlates with the theory of the nations to the East of Mesopotamia knew the group as Assyrians, while to the West, beginning with Greek influence, the group was known as Syrians. Syria being a Greek corruption of Assyria.

The debate appears to have been settled by the discovery of the Çineköy inscription in favour of Syria being derived from Assyria.

The Çineköy inscription is a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual, uncovered from Çineköy, Adana Province, Turkey (ancient Cilicia), dating to the 8th century BC. Originally published by Tekoglu and Lemaire (2000), it was more recently the subject of a 2006 paper published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, in which the author, Robert Rollinger, lends support to the age-old debate of the name "Syria" being derived from "Assyria" (see Etymology of Syria).

The object on which the inscription is found is a monument belonging to Urikki, vassal king of Hiyawa (i.e. Cilicia), dating to the eighth century BC. In this monumental inscription, Urikki made reference to the relationship between his kingdom and his Assyrian overlords. The Luwian inscription reads "Sura/i" whereas the Phoenician translation reads ’ŠR or "Ashur" which, according to Rollinger (2006), "settles the problem once and for all".

Culture

Main article: Assyrian culture

Assyrian child dressed in traditional clothes.

Assyrian culture is largely influenced by Christianity. Main festivals occur during religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. There are also secular holidays such as Kha b-Nisan (vernal equinox).

People often greet and bid relatives farewell with a kiss on each cheek and by saying "ܫܠܡܐ ܥܠܝܟ" Shlama/Shlomo lokh, which means: "Peace be upon you." Others are greeted with a handshake with the right hand only; according to Middle Eastern customs, the left hand is associated with evil. Similarly, shoes may not be left facing up, one may not have their feet facing anyone directly, whistling at night is thought to waken evil spirits, etc.

There are many Assyrian customs that are common in other Middle Eastern cultures. A parent will often place an eye pendant on their baby to prevent "an evil eye being cast upon it". Spitting on anyone or their belongings is seen as a grave insult.

Language

Main article: Neo-Aramaic languages

Syriac alphabet (200 BCE–present)

ܐ    ܒ    ܓ    ܕ    ܗ    ܘ

ܙ    ܚ    ܛ    ܝ    ܟܟ    ܠ

ܡܡ    ܢܢ    ܣ    ܥ    ܦ

ܨ    ܩ    ܪ    ܫ    ܬ

The Neo-Aramaic languages are ultimately descended from Old Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, displacing the East Semitic Assyrian dialect of Akkadian. Aramaic was the language of commerce, trade and communication and became the vernacular language of Assyria in classical antiquity.

By the 1st century AD, Akkadian was extinct, although some loaned vocabulary an Akkadian grammatical structure still survives in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic to this day.

Most Assyrians speak an Eastern Aramaic language whose dialects include Chaldean and Turoyo as well as Assyrian. All are classified as Neo-Aramaic languages and are written using Syriac script, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic script. Assyrians also may speak one or more languages of their country of residence.

To the native speaker, "Syriac" is usually called Soureth or Suret. A wide variety of dialects exist, including Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, and Turoyo. Being stateless, Assyrians also learn the language or languages of their adopted country, usually Arabic, Armenian, Persian or Turkish. In northern Iraq and western Iran, Turkish and Kurdish is widely spoken.

Recent archaeological evidence includes a statue from Syria with Akkadian and Aramaic inscriptions. It is the oldest known Aramaic text.

Religion

Historical divisions within Syriac Christian Churches in the Middle East.

Main article: Syriac Christianity

Assyrians were originally Pagans, who were followers of Ashurism, an Assyro-Babylonian religion, which is the Ancient Mesopotamian religion, and some adopted Judaism, Gnosticism and Manicheanism; however most now belong to various Eastern rite Christian denominations. The primary denominations are; the Assyrian Church of the East, with an estimated 400,000 members, and its later offshoots; the Assyrian-Chaldean Catholic Church, with about 900,000 members, and the Ancient Church of the East with 100,000 members together with the Syriac Orthodox Church (ʿIdto Suryoyto Triṣaṯ Šuḇḥo), which has between 1,000,000 and 4,000,000 members around the world (only about 1 million of whom are Assyrians, the rest being Levantine Arabs, and 80% these live in Syria),. Various Protestant churches are also extant, such as the Assyrian Pentecostal Church with approximately 20,000 members and Assyrian Evangelical Church with approximately 5,000 members. While Assyrians are predominantly Christians, a number are largely secular or irreligious.

As of 2011 Mar Dinkha IV, resident in Chicago Illinois, was Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Addai II, with headquarters in Baghdad, was Patriarch of the Ancient Church of the East, and Ignatius Zakka I Iwas was Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church, with headquarters in Damascus. Mar Emmanuel III Delly, the Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, was the first Patriarch to be elevated to Cardinal, joining the college of cardinals in November 2007.

Many members of the following churches consider themselves Assyrian. Ethnic identities are often deeply intertwined with religion, a legacy of the divisive Ottoman Millet system. The group is traditionally characterized as adhering to various churches of Syriac Christianity and speaking Neo-Aramaic languages. It is subdivided into:

• adherents of the East Syrian Rite, always called Assyrians but in the past sometimes erroneously called Nestorians
  • adherents of the Assyrian Church of the East & Ancient Church of the East, always called Assyrians.
  • adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, usually called Assyrians or more rarely Chaldeans or Chaldo-Assyrians.
• adherents of the West Syrian Rite, called Syriacs, and formerly also Jacobites.
  • adherents of the Syriac Orthodox Church, also called West Syrians or Assyrians-Syriacs
  • adherents of the Syriac Catholic Church, also called West Syrians or Syriacs

A small minority of Assyrians of the above denominations converted to Protestantism in the 20th century, possibly due to British influences, and are now organized through the Assyrian Evangelical Church, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and other Protestant Assyrian groups. These are always called Assyrians

Baptism (Mammadoota) and First Communion are celebrated extensively, similar to a Bris or Bar Mitzvah in Jewish communities. After a death, a gathering is held three days after burial to celebrate the ascension to heaven of the dead person, as of Jesus; after seven days another gathering commemorates their death. A close family member wears only black clothes for forty days and nights, or sometimes a year, as a sign of mourning.

Music

Assyrian man playing Zoorna and Dahola

Main articles: Assyrian/Syriac folk music and Syriac sacral music

The abooba ܐܒܘܒܐ (basic flute) and ṭavla ܛܒ݂ܠܐ (large two-sided drum) became the most common musical instruments for tribal music. Some well known Assyrian/Syriac singers in modern times are Ashur Bet Sargis, Sargon Gabriel, Habib Mousa, Josef Özer, Janan Sawa, Dali Hasdad, Evin Agassi, Klodia Hanna, Juliana Jendo, Walter Aziz and Linda George.

The first International Aramaic Music Festival was held in Lebanon from 1 August until 4 August 2008 for Assyrian people internationally. Assyrians are also involved in western contemporary music, such as Rock/Metal (Melechesh), Rap (Timz), Techno/Dance (Aril Brikha), Opera (Theresa Rassam) and Soul (Jennifer Brikha).

Dance

Main article: Assyrian folk dance

Assyrians have a myriad of traditional dances which are performed mostly for special occasions such as weddings. Assyrian dance is a blend of both ancient indigenous and general near eastern elements. Traditional dances include; Khigga, Tanzara (Tammuz Ara), Kochari, Shaykhane, Tolama, Shora, Seskanee, Beriyu, Dimdimma, Belati, Ekmali, Gulbareh, Janiman, Mamer, Hoberban, Janiman Kavrakha, Aino Kchumeh, Mamyanah, Demaleh, Bagiyeh, Chalakhan, Aman and Gewargina.

A popular Assyrian style of dance called khigga.

Traditional clothing

Main article: Assyrian clothing

Assyrian clothing varies from village to village. Clothing is usually blue, red, green, yellow, black and purple; these colours are also used as embroidery on a white piece of clothing. Decoration is lavish in traditional Assyrian costumes, and sometimes involves jewellery. The conical hats of traditional Assyrian dress have changed little over millennia from those worn in ancient Mesopotamia, and until the 19th and early 20th centuries the ancient Mesopotamian tradition of braiding or platting of hair, beards and moustaches was still commonplace.

Cuisine

Main article: Assyrian cuisine

Assyrian cuisine is similar to other Middle Eastern and east Mediterranean cuisines. It is rich in grain, meat, potato, cheese, bread and tomato. Typically rice is served with every meal, with a stew poured over it. Tea is a popular drink, and there are several dishes of desserts, snacks, and beverages. Alcoholic drinks such as wine, Arak and wheat beer are organically produced and drunk.

Festivals

Assyrian festivals tend to be closely associated with their Christian faith, of which Easter is the most prominent of the celebrations. Assyrians of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Syriac Catholic Church follow the Gregorian calendar and as a result celebrate Easter on a Sunday between March 22 and April 25 inclusively. While Assyrian/Syriac members of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Ancient Church of the East celebrate Easter on a Sunday between April 4 and May 8 inclusively on the Gregorian calendar (March 22 and April 25 on the Julian calendar). During Lent Assyrian/Syriacs are encouraged to fast for 50 days from meat and any other foods which are animal based.

Assyrians celebrate a number of festivals unique to their culture and traditions as well as religious ones:

Assyrian new year festival in Dahuk, northern Iraq

• Kha b-Nisan ܚܕ ܒܢܝܣܢ‎, the Assyrian new year, traditionally on April 1, though usually celebrated on January 1. Assyrians usually wear traditional costumes and hold social events including parades and parties, dancing, and listening to poets telling the story of creation.
• Sauma d-Ba'utha ܒܥܘܬܐ ܕܢܝܢܘܝܐ‎, the Nineveh fast. It is a three-day period of fasting and prayer.
• Somikka, the Assyrian version of Halloween, traditionally meant to scare children into fasting during Lent.
• Kalu d'Sulaqa, celebration of the legend of Malka Shalita.
• Nusardyl, commemorating the baptism of the Assyrians of Urmia by St. Thomas.
• Sharra d'Mart Maryam, usually on August 15, a festival and feast celebrating St. Mary with games, food, and celebration.
• Other Sharras (special festivals) include: Sharra d'Mart Shmuni, Sharra d'Mar Shimon Bar-Sabbaye, Sharra d'Mar Mari, and Shara d'Mar Zaia, Mar Bishu, Mar Sawa, Mar Sliwa, and Mar Odishu
• Yoma d'Sah'deh (Day of Martyrs), commemorating the thousands massacred in the Simele Massacre and the hundreds of thousands massacred in the Assyrian Genocide.

Assyrians also practice unique marriage ceremonies. The rituals performed during weddings are derived from many different elements from the past 4,000 years. An Assyrian wedding traditionally lasted a week. Today, weddings in the Assyrian homeland usually last 2–3 days; in the Assyrian diaspora they last 1–2 days.

Genetics

Further information: Genetic history of the Near East

Late 20th century DNA analysis conducted by Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza, "shows that Assyrians have a distinct genetic profile that distinguishes their population from any other population." Genetic analysis of the Assyrians of Persia demonstrated that they were "closed" with little "intermixture" with the Muslim Persian, Kurdish and Arab populations and that an individual Assyrian's genetic makeup is relatively close to that of the Assyrian population as a whole, regardless of Christian religious affiliation. Cavalli-Sforza et al. state in addition, "[T]he Assyrians are a fairly homogeneous group of people, believed to originate from the land of old Assyria in northern Iraq", and "they are Christians and are possibly bona fide descendants of their namesakes." "The genetic data are compatible with historical data that region played a major role in maintaining the Assyrian population's separate identity during the Christian era".

In a 2006 study of the Y chromosome DNA of six regional populations, including, for comparison, Assyrians and Syrian Arabs, researchers found that, "the Semitic populations (Assyrians and Arab Syrians) are very distinct from each other according to both [comparative] axes. This difference supported also by other methods of comparison points out the weak genetic affinity between the two populations with different historical destinies."

A 2008 study on the genetics of "old ethnic groups in Mesopotamia," including 340 subjects from seven ethnic communities ("Assyrian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Armenian, Kurdish, Turkmen, the Arab peoples in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Kuwait") found that Assyrians were homogeneous with respect to all other ethnic groups sampled in the study. It also found that the Assyrian group were homogenous regardless of religious affiliation (i.e. Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church etc.).

In 2008 Fox News in the United States ran a feature called "Know your Roots". As part of the feature, an Assyrian news reporter, Nineveh Dinha was tested by Gene Tree.com. Her DNA profile was genetically mapped back to the region of Harran in 1400 BC, which was a part of ancient Assyria, supporting her ancestral identity.

In a 2011 study focusing primarily on the genetics of so-called Marsh Arabs of Iraq, researchers identified Y chromosome haplotypes shared by Marsh Arabs, Iraqi Arabs, Assyrians and Mandeans, "supporting a common local background."

See also

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a <div>...</div> open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates

Type	Family	Handles wiki table code?†	Responsive/ mobile suited	Start template	Column divider	End template
Float	"col-float"	Yes	Yes	{{col-float}}	{{col-float-break}}	{{col-float-end}}
	"columns-start"	Yes	Yes	{{columns-start}}	{{column}}	{{columns-end}}
Columns	"div col"	Yes	Yes	{{div col}}	–	{{div col end}}
	"columns-list"	No	Yes	{{columns-list}} (wraps div col)	–	–
Flexbox	"flex columns"	No	Yes	{{flex columns}}	–	–
Table	"col"	Yes	No	{{col-begin}}, {{col-begin-fixed}} or {{col-begin-small}}	{{col-break}} or {{col-2}} .. {{col-5}}	{{col-end}}

^† Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

Further reading

• Aphram I Barsoum, Patriarch (1943). The Scattered Pearls.
• Benjamin, Yoab. "Assyrians in Middle America: A Historical and Demographic Study of the Chicago Assyrian Community" (PDF). 10 (2). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• BetGivargis-McDaniel, Maegan (2007). Assyrians of New Britain. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-5012-4. OCLC 156908771.
• Brock, Sebastian (9 September 2002). The Hidden Pearl: The Aramaic Heritage. Trans World Film. ISBN 1-931956-99-5.
• De Courtis, Sėbastien (2004). The Forgotten Genocide: Eastern Christians, the Last Arameans (1st Gorgias Press ed.). Piscataway, New Jersey : Gorgias Press. ISBN 978-1-59333-077-4. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
• Donabed, Sargon; Donabed, Ninos (2006). Assyrians of Eastern Massachusetts. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0-7385-4480-9. OCLC 70184669.
• Ephrem I Barsaum, Ignatius (2006). De spridda pärlorna - En historia om syriansk litteratur och vetenskap (in Swedish). Sweden: Anastasis Media AB. ISBN 91-975751-4-3. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
• Gaunt, David (2006). Massacres, resistance, protectors: Muslim-Christian relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I. Gorgias Press LLC. ISBN 1-59333-301-3. OCLC 85766950. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Henrich, Joseph; Henrich, Natalie (May 2007). Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-531423-9.
• Hollerweger, Hans (1999). Tur Abdin: A Homeland of Ancient Syro-Aramaean Culture (in English, German, and Turkish). Österreich. ISBN 3-9501039-0-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• MacDonald, Kevin (2004-07-29). "Socialization for Ingroup Identity among Assyrians in the United States". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Parpola, Simo (2004). "National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times" (PDF). Journal of Assyrian Academic Studies. 18 (2).
• Taylor, David; Brock, Sebastian (9 September 2002). Vol. I: The Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Trans World Film. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
• Taylor, David; Brock, Sebastian (9 September 2002). Vol. II: The Heirs of the Ancient Aramaic Heritage. Trans World Film. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
• Taylor, David; Brock, Sebastian (9 September 2002). Vol. III: At the Turn of the Third Millennium; The Syrian Orthodox Witness. Trans World Film. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)

External links

• Assyrian people, Britannica Online
• A virtual Assyria: Cyberland
• A virtual Assyria: Christians from the Middle East
• Traditional Assyrian Costumes
• Assyrian Iraqi Document Projects
• Who Are Assyrians?
• Assyrian History