KURDISH HISTORY Back History of the Kurdish people In prehistoric times the region was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The region was host to the Jarmo culture circa 7000 BC. The earliest neolithic site in Kurdistan is at Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, circa 6000 BC. The region was inhabited by the northern branch of the Akkadians, later known as Assyrians, and Hurrians. It was ruled by the Akkadian Empire from 2334 BC until 2154 BC. Assyrian kings are attested from the 23rd century BC according to the Assyrian King List, and Assyrian city-states such as Ashur and Ekallatum started appearing in the region from the mid 21st century BC. Prior to the rule of king Ushpia circa 2030 BC, the city of Ashur appears to have been a regional administrative center of the Akkadian Empire, implicated by Nuzi tablets,subject to their fellow Akkadian Sargon and his successors. Large cities were built by the Assyrians, including Ashur, Nineveh, Guzana, Arrapkha, Imgur-Enlil (Balawat), Shubat-Enlil and Kalhu (Calah/Nimrud). One of the major Assyrian cities in the area, Arbil (Arba-Ilu), was noted for its distinctive cult of Ishtar,and the city was called the Lady of Ishtar by its Assyrian inhabitants. The Assyrians ruled the region from the 21st century BC. The region was known as Assyria, and was the center of various Assyrian empires (particularly during the periods 1813-1754 BC, 1385-1076 BC and the Neo Assyrian Empire of 911-608 BC. Between 612 and 605 BC the Assyrian empire fell, and it passed to the neo-Babylonians and later became part of the Athura Satrap within the Achaemenian Empire from 539 to 332 BC, where it was known as Athura, the Achaemenid name for Assyria. The region fell to Alexander The Great in 332 BC, and was thereafter ruled by the Greek Seleucid Empire until the mid 2nd century BC (and was renamed Syria, a Greek corruption of Assyria), when it fell to Mithridates I of Parthia. The Assyrian semi-independent kingdom of Adiabene was centred in Arbil in the first Christian centuries. Later, the region was incorporated by the Romans as the Roman Assyria province but shortly retaken by the Sassanids who established the Satrap of Assuristan (Sassanid Assyria) in it until the Arab Islamic conquest. The region became a center of the Assyrian Church of the East and a flourishing Syriac literary tradition during Sassanid rule. Islamic Period The region was conquered by Arab Muslims in the mid 7th century AD, Assyria was dissolved as a geo-political entity (although Assyrians remain in the area to this day), and the area made part of the Muslim Arab Rashiduns, Umayyads, and later the Abbasid Caliphates, before becoming part of various Turkic, and Mongol emirates. And after the Ottomans gained power in the region starting from the sixteenth century, the area today known as Iraqi Kurdistan became formerly ruled by three principalities of Baban, Badinan and Soran. In 1831, direct Ottoman rule was imposed, which lasted until World War I when the Ottomans were defeated by the British; afterwards the influence increased in the region after the First World War. Partial autonomy was reached by Kurdistan Uyezd (1923-1926) and by Iraqi Kurdistan (since 1991), while notably in Turkish Kurdistan, an armed conflict between the PKK and Turkish Armed Forces was ongoing 1984 to 1999, and the region continues to be unstable with renewed flaring up of violence in the 2000s. From 1915 to 1918, Kurds struggled to end Ottoman rule over their region. They were encouraged by Woodrow Wilsons support for non-Turkish nationalities of the empire and submitted their claim for independence to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. The Treaty of Sevres stipulated creation of an autonomous Kurdish state in 1920, but the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 failed to mention Kurds. In 1925 and 1930, Kurdish revolts were forcibly suppressed.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 16:09:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015