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the Assyrian people

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erin
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« on: May 03, 2007, 03:44:35 am »



Ashur-nasir-pal II · Saint Ephrem
Agha Petros · Ammo Baba


Assyrians are an ethnic group whose origins lie in what is today Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, but who have migrated to the Caucasus, North America and Western Europe during the past century. Hundreds of thousands more live in Assyrian diaspora and Iraqi refugee communities in Europe, the former Soviet Union, Australia, New Zealand, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon.

The Assyrians are believed to have descended from the ancient Akkadians, who, starting with Sargon of Akkad, emerged as the ruling class of Assyria.[10] The title of "King of Babylon" was "King of Sumer and Akkad" as transliterated from the Akkadian Šār Mat Šūmerī ū Akkadī.[11] Eventually Aramaean tribes assimilated into the Assyrian empire and their language became dominant, while the different cultures merged to form the ancient Assyrian culture.[12] Today, 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, for instance Chaldean Catholic.[13]

Most Assyrians speak a modern form of Syriac,[14] 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.

As a result of persecution, mostly during the last century, there is now a significant Assyrian diaspora. Major events included the Islamic revolution in Iran, the Simele massacre, and the Assyrian genocide that occurred under Ottoman Turkish rule in the early 1900s. The latest event to hit the Assyrian community is the war in Iraq; of the one million or more Iraqis reported by the United Nations to have fled, forty percent are Assyrian, despite Assyrians comprising only three to five percent of the Iraqi population
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erin
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« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2007, 03:45:29 am »

History

The oldest neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture. The first inscriptions of Assyrian rulers appear after 2000 BC. Assyria then consisted of a number of city states and small Semitic kingdoms. The foundation of the Assyrian monarchy was traditionally ascribed to Zulilu, who is said to have lived after Bel-kap-kapu (Bel-kapkapi or Belkabi, circa 1900 BC), the ancestor of Shalmaneser I. The Assyrian kings controlled a large kingdom at three different times in history. These are called the Old, Middle, and Neo-Assyrian kingdoms, or periods. The most powerful and best-known nation of these periods is the Neo-Assyrian kingdom (911-612 BC).

After the fall of the empire in 612 BC, Assyria became a province of different empires, first with the invasion of the Persian king Cyrus in 547 BC.[16] King Cyrus changed Assyria's capital from Nineveh to Arbela. Assyrians became frontline soldiers for the Persian empire under King Xerxes, because of their strategic locations, playing a big role in the Battle of Marathon under King Darius I in 490 BC.[17] Assyria would eventually become a Roman province between 161 and 363 AD.

Along with the Armenians and Ethiopians, the Assyrians were one of the first groups to convert to Christianity and spread Nestorian Christianity to the Far East. The ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh had its own bishop of the Church of the East at the time of the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia.[18] During the era of the Islamic Empire, Assyria maintained its autonomy; in a fatwa, Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, demanded the "protection of the Assyrian people of Mesopotamia".[19] The Assyrians eventually lost their autonomy when the region was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and the written fatwa destroyed, in 1847. Thirty thousand Assyrians were massacred.[20]

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. World War I and its aftermath saw its end, during which time Assyrians – like Armenians – claim a genocide occurred (1914 to 1922), where an estimated two-thirds of Assyrians died in organized massacres, starvation, disease, and systematic kidnapping and ****. 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)
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erin
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« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2007, 03:46:21 am »

Identity

Many modern Assyrians believe to descend from the inhabitants of the ancient Assyrian Empire that began under Sargon I and encompassed the area that is now Iraq (Mesopotamia), Syria, southeastern Turkey, western Iran, Palestine and the Armenian highlands. The evidence of genetic and cultural continuity is strong.[citation needed] Although more ancient graves need to be found and their contents exhumed, examined, carbon-dated and DNA remains compared with contemporary samples, the DNA analysis that has been conducted "shows that [Assyrians] have a distinct genetic profile that distinguishes their population from any other population."[22] Genetic analysis of the Assyrians of Persia demonstrated that they were "closed" with little "intermixture" with the Muslim Persian population.[23] Culturally, the language of the modern Assyrians is extraordinarily similar to that of the ancient Assyrians[24], and the earliest European visitors to northern Mesopotamia in modern times encountered a people called "Assyrians" and men with ancient Assyrian names such as Sargon and Sennacherib.[25] [26] [27] The Assyrians manifested a remarkable degree of linguistic, religious, and cultural continuity from the time of the ancient Greeks, Persians, and Parthians through periods of medieval Byzantine, Arab, Persian, and Ottoman rule.[28]

Assyrians are divided among several churches (see below). They speak and many can read and write modern Assyrian, a dialect of neo-Aramaic, a Semitic language that is related to ancient Phoenician and was adopted as the principal administrative language of the ancient Assyrian Empire, and which is used in Assyrian religious observances.[29] Historians and linguists use the term "modern Assyrian" to refer to the language spoken by the modern Assyrians.[30][31][32] The original ancient Assyrian language, also known as Akkadian, is now used only in scholarly and historical research.[33] Some scholars, such as Richard Nelson Frye, has stated that "Syria" has always meant "Assyria",[34] pointing, for example, to the Greek historians such as Herodotus and Strabo, who referred to Assyrians as "Syrians", dropping the initial "A".[34] Encyclopedia Americana states "It is now certain that the name Syrian is derived from the older name Assyrian."[35] This could explain why Assyrians called themselves Syrian throughout much of the time after Anno Domini. Other scholars argue about which came first, "Syrian" or "Assyrian". 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).[36] According to Tsereteli, however, a Georgian equivalent of "Assyrians" appears in ancient Georgian and Armenian documents.[37]

Furthermore, a more recent archaeological finding attests to the synonymy between the terms "Assyria" and "Syria". In Çineköy, Turkey, a Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician bilingual monumental inscription was found, belonging to Urikki, vassal king of Que (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"[38]. In a thorough analysis of this inscription, Robert Rollinger, a professor of Assyriology at the Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck (University of Innsbruck), states that this bilingual inscription "settles the problem once and for all"[39]. Whether this is proof of the synonymy between the terms "Suryoyo" and "Ashuraya" is open to interpretation, and still a growing topic of debate.

In order to assimilate them, the ancient Assyrian empire relocated conquered populations to urban areas all over the empire. Today, Assyrians and other ethnic groups feel pressure to identify as "Arabs".
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erin
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« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2007, 03:47:40 am »



Kha'b Nissan (Assyrian new year) celebration in Alqosh, Iraq in 2005.
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« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2007, 03:49:40 am »



Alqosh, located in the midst of Assyrian contemporary civilization.

Assyrian culture is dictated by religion. The language is also tied to the church as well for it uses the Syriac language in liturgy. Festivals occur during religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas. There are also secular holidays such as Akitu (the Assyrian New Year).[41]

People often greet and bid relatives farewell with a kiss on each cheek and by saying "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.

There are Assyrians that are not very religious yet they may be very nationalistic. Assyrians are proud of their heritage, their Christianity, and of speaking the language of Christ. Children are often given Christian or Assyrian names such as Ashur, Sargon, Shamiram, Nineveh, Ninos, Nimrod, etc. Baptism and First Communion are heavily celebrated events similar to how a Bris and a B'nai Mitzvah are in Judaism. When an Assyrian person dies, three days after they are buried they gather to celebrate them rising to heaven (as did Jesus), after seven days they again gather to commomerate their passing. A close family member wears only black clothes for forty days or one year as a sign of respect.

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« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2007, 03:50:33 am »



Assyrian children in Iraq.
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