Upper Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the
The region extends south from the mountains of Anatolia, east from the hills on the left bank of the Euphrates river, west from the mountains on the right bank of the Tigris river and includes the Sinjar plain. It extends down the Tigris to Samarra and down the Euphrates to Hit, Iraq. The Khabur runs for over 400 km (250 mi) across the plain, from Turkey in the north, feeding into the Euphrates.
The major settlements are Mosul, Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, al-Hasakah, Diyarbakır and Qamishli. The western, Syrian part, is essentially contiguous with the Syrian al-Hasakah Governorate and is described as "Syria's breadbasket".[3] The eastern, Iraqi part, includes and extends slightly beyond the Iraqi Nineveh Governorate. In the north it includes the Turkish provinces of Şanlıurfa, Mardin, and parts of Diyarbakır Province.
Geography
The name al-Jazira has been used since the 7th century AD by Islamic sources to refer to the northern section of Mesopotamia,[
Al-Jazira is characterised as an outwash or
History
Prehistory
Al-Jazirah is extremely important archeologically. This is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus the starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain
From Al-Jazirah the idea of farming along with the domesticated seeds spread first to the rest of the Levant and then to North-Africa, Europe and eastwards through Mesopotamia all the way to present-day Pakistan (see Mehrgarh).
Earlier archeologists worked on the assumption that agriculture was a prerequisite to a sedentary lifestyle, but excavations in Israel and Lebanon surprised science by showing that a sedentary lifestyle actually came before agriculture (see the Natufian culture). Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the spectacular finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC—over five thousand years older than Stonehenge—and thus the absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere. As far as we know today no well-established farming societies existed at the time. Farming seemed to be still experimental and only a smallish supplement to continued hunting and gathering. So either were (semi)sedentary hunter-gatherers rich enough and many enough to organize and execute such large communal building projects, or well-established agricultural societies existed much further back than hitherto known. After all, Göbekli Tepe lies just 32 km from Karaca Dağ.
The questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East.[5][6] Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far. Sumerians are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia.[7][8]
Early history
The
The political history of Upper Mesopotamia and Syria during the Early Dynastic Period is well known from the royal archives recovered at Ebla. Ebla, Mari, and Nagar were the dominant states for this period. The earliest texts indicate that Ebla paid tribute to Mari but was able to reduce it after it won a military victory.[9][10] Cities like Emar on the Upper Euphrates and Abarsal (location unknown) were vassals of Ebla. Ebla exchanged gifts with Nagar, and a royal marriage was concluded between the daughter of a king of Ebla and the son of his counterpart at Nagar. The archives also contain letters from more distant kingdoms, such as Kish and possibly Hamazi, although it is also possible that there were cities with the same names closer to Ebla.[11] In many ways, the diplomatic interactions in the wider Ancient Near East during this period resemble those from the second millennium BC, which are particularly well known from the Amarna letters.[12]
Upper Mesopotamia is also the heartland of ancient
The region fell to the Assyrians' southern brethren, the
It then fell to the
Since pre-Arab and pre-Islamic times, al-Jazira has been an economically prosperous region with various agricultural (fruit and cereal) products, as well as a prolific manufacturing (food processing and cloth weaving) system. The region's position at the border of the Sasanian and Byzantine territories also made it an important commercial center, and advantage that the region continued to enjoy, even after the Muslim conquest of Persia and Byzantine possessions in the Levant.
Al-Jazira included the Roman/Byzantine provinces of
Islamic empires
The conquest of the region took place under the
The prosperity of the region and its high agricultural and manufacturing output made it an object of contest between the leaders of the early conquering Arab armies. Various conquerors tried, in vain, to bind various cities of the former Sassanian provinces, as well as the newly conquered Byzantine provinces of Mesopotamia, into a coherent unit under their own rule.
The control of the region, however, was essential to any power centered in Baghdad. Consequently, the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate brought al-Jazira under the direct rule of the government in Baghdad. At this time, al-Jazira was one of the highest tax-yielding provinces of the Abbasid Empire.
During the early history of Islam, al-Jazira became a center for the
With the arrival of the
Modern history
Although the region is ethnically diverse, it is considered to be the traditional
Violence against Christians changed the demographics of Upper Mesopotamia. Some Kurdish and Arab tribes cooperated with Ottoman authorities in the
In Syria's Jazira province, the French official reports show the existence of 45 Kurdish villages in Jazira prior to 1927. After the failed
Under the French Mandate of Syria, newly-arriving Kurds were granted citizenship by
Assyrian Christians began to emigrate from Syria after the Amuda massacre of August 9, 1937. This massacre, carried out by the Kurd Saeed Agha, emptied the city of its Assyrian population. In 1941, the Assyrian community of
Religious status
Djezirah is one of the four dioceses of the Syriac Orthodox Church. The others are in Aleppo, Homs–Hama and Damascus.[13]
See also
Notes
- ^ Georges Roux – Ancient Iraq
- OCLC 1105266843.
- ^ "The next battlefield". The Economist. Archived from the original on 2017-11-11. Retrieved 2017-09-17.
- ^ A. Carlson, Thomas (June 30, 2014). "Mesopotamia — ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ". The Syriac Gazetteer. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. Retrieved June 14, 2020.
- S2CID 161719608.
- ^ "Göbekli Tepe: Series Introduction". Genealogy of Religion. 12 October 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-10-18. Retrieved 2013-03-24.
- ISBN 978-0495812227.
- ISBN 978-0415047425.
- S2CID 164002885
- ^ Charpin, D. (2008), "Tell Hariri/Mari : Textes", Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible, 77–78: 223–224
- ISBN 9780802035868.
- ^ Biga, M.G. (1995), "I rapporti diplomatici nel Periodo Protosiriano", in Matthiae, P.; Pinnock, F.; Scandone-Matthiae, G. (eds.), Ebla, Alle origini della civiltà urbana, Milan, pp. 140–147
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b Mouawad, Ray J. (2001-01-01). "Syria and Iraq – Repression". Middle East Quarterly. Archived from the original on 2007-08-05. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
- ISBN 978-1-4128-3592-3.
- ^ Fiey, J. M. 1993. Pour un Oriens Christianus Novus, Répertoire des Diocèses Syriaques Orientaux et Occidentaux. Beirut. pp. 244-251.
- ISBN 1-85043-416-6.
- ISBN 0-415-07265-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-203-89211-4.
- ^ from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2012-03-29.
- ASIN B0006AOLOA.
- ISBN 978-1-139-48693-4.
- ISBN 0745324991.
- ^ Samn! (2013-12-22). "Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: As-Safir on the History of the Persecution of Middle Eastern Christians". Notes on Arab Orthodoxy. Archived from the original on 2013-12-24. Retrieved 2022-12-02.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-19-510806-X.
- Peter M. M. G. Akkermans; Glenn M. Schwartz (2003). The archaeology of Syria: from complex hunter-gatherers to early urban societies (c. 16,000–300 BC). Cambridge University Press. pp. 72–. ISBN 978-0-521-79666-8. Retrieved 27 June 2011.
- Istakhri, Ibrahim. Al-Masālik wa-al-mamālik, Dār al-Qalam, Cairo, 1961
- Brauer, Ralph W., Boundaries and Frontiers in Medieval Muslim Geography, Philadelphia, 1995
- Ibn Khurradādhbih. Almasalik wal Mamalik, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1967
- OCLC 1044046.
- Mohammadi Malayeri, Mohammad. Tārikh o Farhang-i Irān dar Asr-e Enteghaal, Tus, Tehran, 1996
- Morony, Michael G. Iraq after the Muslim Conquest, Princeton, 1984