Product Code Database
Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians share descent directly from the ancient , one of the key civilizations of Mesopotamia. While they are distinct from other Mesopotamian groups, such as the Babylonians, they share in the broader cultural heritage of the Mesopotamian region.Parpola, Simo (2004), National and Ethnic Identity in the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Assyrian Identity in Post-Empire Times. Modern Assyrians may culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious, geographic, and tribal identification.
Assyrians speak various dialects of Neo-Aramaic, specifically those known as Suret and Turoyo, which are among the oldest continuously spoken and written languages in the world. Aramaic was the lingua franca of West Asia for centuries and was the language spoken by historical Jesus. It has influenced other languages such as Hebrew and Arabic, and, through cultural and religious exchanges, it has had some influence on Mongolian and Uighur. Aramaic itself is the oldest continuously spoken and written language in the Middle East, with a history stretching back over 3,000 years.Naby, Eden (2016), The Assyrians and Aramaic: Speaking the Oldest Living Language of the Middle East.
Assyrians are almost exclusively Christian, with most adhering to the East and West Syriac liturgical rites of Christianity.For Assyrians as a Christian people, see
The ancestral indigenous lands that form the Assyrian homeland are those of ancient Mesopotamia and the Zab rivers, a region currently divided between modern-day Iraq, southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, and northeastern Syria. A majority of modern Assyrians have migrated to other regions of the world, including North America, the Levant, Australia, Europe, Russia and the Caucasus. Emigration was triggered by genocidal events throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, including the Assyrian genocide or Sayfo, as well as religious persecution by Islamic extremists. The most recent reasons for emigration are due to events such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies, the Syrian civil war, and the emergence of the Islamic State. Of the one million or more Iraqis who have fled Iraq since the occupation, nearly 40% were indigenous Assyrians, even though Assyrians accounted for only around 3% of the pre-war Iraqi population.
The Islamic State was driven out from the Assyrian villages in the Khabour River Valley and the areas surrounding the city of Al-Hasakah in Syria by 2015, and from the Nineveh Plains in Iraq by 2017. In 2014, the Nineveh Plain Protection Units was formed and many Assyrians joined the force to defend themselves. The organization later became part of Iraqi Armed forces and played a key role in liberating areas previously held by the Islamic State during the War in Iraq. In northern Syria, Assyrian groups have been taking part both politically and militarily in the Kurdish-dominated but multiethnic Syrian Democratic Forces (see Khabour Guards and Sutoro) and Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
The history of Assyria begins with the formation of the city of Assur, perhaps as early as the 25th century BC.Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, p. 187 During the early Bronze Age period, Sargon of Akkad united all the native Semitic language-speaking peoples, including the Assyrians, and the of Mesopotamia under the Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC). At this time, the city of Assur already existed and would later become the heart of the Assyrian Empire.Frahm, Eckart (2017). "The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000–609 BCE)". Nineveh, although settled earlier, became the largest and most important city of the Assyrian Empire, particularly during the Neo-Assyrian period in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. At its height, Nineveh was considered the largest city in the world, surpassing even Babylon in size and influence,Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Ancient Near East: c. 3000–330 BC. Routledge. and some scholars suggest that the famed Hanging Gardens, often associated with Babylon, might have actually been located in Nineveh.Dalley, Stephanie. The Mystery of the Hanging Garden of Babylon: An Elusive World Wonder Traced. Oxford University Press, 2013. Prior to Nineveh's ascendancy, the Assyrian city of Nimrud (also known as Kalhu) held the title of the world's largest city during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II in the 9th century BC, serving as the imperial capital and a major center of power and culture. In their early stages, Assyrian cities such as Assur and Nineveh appear to have functioned as administrative centers under Sumerian control rather than as independent political entities. Over time, the Sumerian population was gradually absorbed into the broader Akkadian-speaking (Assyro-Babylonian) populace. An Assyrian identity distinct from other neighboring groups appears to have formed during the Old Assyrian period, in the 21st or 20th century BC. p. 81
In the traditions of the Assyrian Church of the East, they are descended from Abraham's grandson, Dedan son of Jokshan, progenitor of the ancient Assyrians.Genesis 25:3 However, there is no other historical basis for this assertion. The Hebrew Bible does not directly mention it, and there is no mention in Assyrian records, which date as far back as the 25th century BC. What is known is that Ashur-uballit I overthrew the Mitanni c. 1365 BC and the Assyrians benefited from this development by taking control of the eastern portion of Mitanni territory and later annexing Hittites, , Amorites and Hurrians territories. The rise and rule of the Middle Assyrian Empire (14th to 10th century BC) spread Assyrian culture, people and identity across northern Mesopotamia. p. 145
The Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 911–609 BC) was the most powerful and expansive phase of Assyrian civilization, ruling the largest empire yet assembled at that time, stretching from Mesopotamia to Egypt and the Levant.Frahm, Eckart (2017), "The Neo-Assyrian Period (ca. 1000–609 BCE)". At its height, it was the strongest military power in the world, pioneering advanced tactics, siege warfare, and administrative systems that influenced future empires.Düring, Bleda S. (2020). The Imperialisation of Assyria: An Archaeological Approach, Cambridge University Press.
However, the empire's decline was gradual, caused by imperial overstretch, internal instability, and resistance from vassal states. The Babylonians and Medes formed an alliance and captured Nineveh in 612 BC, and after a final defeat at Harran in 609 BC, the empire fell. Despite this, Assyrian culture and administrative practices influenced the subsequent Babylonian and Persian empires.
The Assyrian people, after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 609 BC, were under the control of the Neo-Babylonian Empire and later, the Persian Empire, which consumed the entire Neo-Babylonian or "Chaldean" Empire in 539 BC. Assyrians became front line soldiers for the Persian Empire under Xerxes I, playing a significant role in the Battle of Marathon under Darius I in 490 BC."Artifacts show rivals Athens and Sparta," Yahoo News, December 5, 2006. However, Herodotus, whose Histories are the primary source of information about that battle, makes no mention of Assyrians in connection with it.
Despite the influx of foreign elements, the presence of Assyrians is confirmed by the worship of the god Ashur. References to the name survive into the 3rd century AD. The Greeks, Parthian Empire, and Roman Empire had a relatively low level of integration with the local population in Mesopotamia, which allowed their cultures to survive.Olmatead, History of the Persian Empire, Chicago University Press, 1959, p.39 Semi-independent kingdoms influenced by Assyrian culture (Hatra, Adiabene, Osroene) and perhaps semi-autonomous Assyrian vassal states (Assur) sprung up in the east under Parthian rule, lasting until conquests by the Sasanian Empire in the region in the 3rd century AD.
The Kültepe texts, which were written in Old Assyrian, preserve some loanwords from the Hittite language. Those loanwords are the earliest attestation of any Indo-European language, dated to the 20th century BC. Most of the archaeological evidence is typical of Anatolia rather than of Assyria, but using both cuneiform and the dialect is the best indication of Assyrian presence. Over 20,000 cuneiform tablets have been recovered from the site.E. Bilgic and S Bayram, Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri II, Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1995, K. R. Veenhof, Ankara Kultepe Tabletleri V, Turk Tarih Kurumu, 2010,
From 1700 BC and onward, the Sumerian language was preserved by the ancient and Assyrians only as a Sacred language and classical language for religious, artistic, and scholarly purposes.
The Akkadian language, with its main of Assyrian and Babylonian, once the lingua franca of the Ancient Near East, began to decline during the Neo-Assyrian Empire around the 8th century BC, being marginalized by Old Aramaic during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III. By the Hellenistic period, the language was largely confined to scholars and priests working in temples in Assyria and Babylonia.
Osroene and Adiabene were ancient kingdoms located in northern Mesopotamia, regions historically inhabited by Assyrian peoples. Both kingdoms played significant roles in the cultural and political landscape of the Near East from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity.Millar, Fergus, The Roman Near East, 31 BC – AD 337; Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Osroëne”; “Adiabene”
Osroëne, centered around its capital Edessa (modern Urfa, Turkey), was founded around 136 BC by Osroes, likely of Iranian origin, but over time it became predominantly Aramaic-speaking and culturally Assyrian. The kingdom controlled key trade routes and often balanced its alliances between the Roman and Parthian empires.Millar, Fergus, 1993; Segal, J. B., Edessa: The Blessed City
Edessa emerged as a major center of Syriac Christianity and Assyrian cultural identity, developing a rich tradition of Syriac literature and theology. Osroëne retained some autonomy under Roman protection until its final incorporation into the empire in 216 AD.Segal, J. B., 1970; Parpola, Simo, “Assyrians after Assyria”
Adiabene, located to the east with its capital at Erbil (modern Erbil, Iraq), was similarly an Assyrian kingdom both ethnically and culturally. Its population spoke Aramaic, and the kingdom is famously noted for the royal family's conversion to Judaism in the 1st century AD.Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Adiabene”; Millar, Fergus, 1993
Adiabene was a significant political entity in Mesopotamia under Parthian suzerainty and later Sāsānid control before its eventual incorporation into Islamic empires.Millar, Fergus, 1993.Crone, Patricia, and Michael Cook. 1977. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Both kingdoms are recognized today as key centers of Assyrian heritage, representing continuity of the ancient Assyrian people through language, religion, and culture in northern Mesopotamia during classical antiquity.Parpola, Simo, 1991.Crone, Patricia, and Michael Cook. 1977. Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roman influence in the area came to an end under Jovian in 363, who abandoned the region after concluding a hasty peace agreement with the Sassanians.Ammianus Marcellinus The Later Roman Empire (354–378) A shameful peace concluded by Jovian 6.7 p. 303, Penguin Classics, Translated by Walter Hamilton 1986
The Assyrians were Christianized in the first to third centuries in Roman Syria and Roman Assyria. The population of the Sasanian Empire of Asoristan was a mixed one, composed of Assyrians, Arameans in the far south and the western deserts, and Persians. The Greeks element in the cities, still strong during the Parthian Empire, ceased to be ethnically distinct in Sasanian times. Most of the population were Eastern Aramaic speakers. Much of the population of Asoristan was Christian. However, according to Isho'Yahb III, there were perhaps more pagans than Christians in the region. These pagans worshipped Gods such as Dumuzid and a Babylonian Sea monster along with sacrifice to idols.Michael G. Morony (1984). 9780691053950, Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press. . ISBN 9780691053950
Within Sasanian Empire Adiabene an examination of Syriac source work can infer that the majority of the population of Adiabene were Syriac language speaking and of local Assyrian origin. At the same time, Adiabene's elites were integrated with values of Zoroastrian social life. It can be assumed that many local Semitic cults succumbed to state supported Zoroastrianism during this period. These trends can be seen in the Legend of Mar Mar Qardagh, where the main protagonist is portrayed as being of Assyrian royal descent, yet of Zoroastrian creed prior to his conversion to Christianity.
Along with the Arameans, Armenians, Greeks, and Nabataeans, the Assyrians were among the first people to convert to Christianity and spread Eastern Christianity to the Far East despite becoming, from the 8th century, a minority religion in their homeland following the Muslim conquest of Persia.
In 410, the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sasanian Empire,Seleucia-Ctesiphon is not to be confused with Seleucia Isauria (now Silifke, Turkey) within the Roman Empire, where, at the request of the Roman emperor, the Council of Seleucia was held in 359. organised the Christians within that Empire into what became known as the Church of the East. Its head was declared to be the bishop of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, who in the acts of the council was referred to as the Grand or Major Metropolitan and who soon afterward was called the Catholicos of the East. Later, the title of Patriarch was also used. Dioceses were organised into provinces, each of which was under the authority of a metropolitan bishop. Six such areas were instituted in 410. Another council held in 424 declared that the Catholicos of the East was independent of "Western" ecclesiastical authorities (those of the Roman Empire).
Soon afterward, Christians in the Roman Empire were divided by their attitude regarding the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned Nestorianism, and the Council of Chalcedon (451), which condemned Monophysitism. Those who for any reason refused to accept one or other of these councils were called Nestorians or Monophysites, while those who accepted both councils, held under the auspices of the Roman emperors, were called Melkites (derived from Syriac malkā, king), meaning royalists.
All three groups existed among the Syriac Christians, the East Syriacs being called Nestorians and the West Syriacs being divided between the Monophysites (today the Syriac Orthodox Church, also known as Jacobites, after Jacob Baradaeus) and those who accepted both councils, primarily today's Eastern Orthodox Church, which has adopted the Byzantine Rite in Greek language, but also the Maronite Church, which kept its West Syriac Rite and was not as closely aligned with Constantinople.
Roman/Byzantine and Persian spheres of influence divided Syriac-speaking Christians into two groups: those who adhered to the Miaphysite Syriac Orthodox Church (the so-called Jacobite Church), or West Syrians, and those who adhered to the Church of the East, the so-called Nestorian Church. Following the split, they developed distinct dialects, mainly based on the pronunciation and written symbolization of vowels. With the rise of Syriac Christianity, eastern Aramaic enjoyed a renaissance as a classical language in the 2nd to 8th centuries, and varieties of that form of Aramaic (Neo-Aramaic languages) are still spoken by a few small groups of Jacobite and Nestorian Christians in the Middle East.
Theodora, who lived from April 1, 527 A.D. to June 28, 548 A.D., was a notable empress of the Byzantine Empire and the wife of Emperor Justinian I. Although her exact ethnic background is not definitively established, some sources suggest she was of Assyrian origin. She played a significant role in advocating for women's rights and social reforms. Theodora is particularly remembered for her efforts to improve the status of women, including legislation against forced prostitution and support for widows and orphans. She was a key supporter of her husband's efforts to restore and expand the Byzantine Empire from their capital, Constantinople. Additionally, Theodora worked towards alleviating the persecution of Miaphysites, although full reconciliation with this Christian sect was not achieved during her lifetime.Theodora the "Believing Queen:" A Study in Syriac Historiographical Tradition, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, p. 216, 217, 218.
Indigenous Assyrians became second-class citizens ( dhimmi) in a greater Arab Islamic state. Those who resisted Arabization and conversion to Islam were subject to severe religious, ethnic, and cultural discrimination and had certain restrictions imposed upon them. Assyrians were excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved for Muslims. They did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, and their word was not equal to that of a Muslim in legal and civil matters. As Christians, they were subject to payment of a special tax, the jizya.
They were banned from spreading their religion further or building new churches in Muslim-ruled lands, but were expected to adhere to the same laws of property, contract, and obligation as the Muslim Arabs. They could not seek the conversion of a Muslim, a non-Muslim man could not marry a Muslim woman, and the child of such a marriage would be considered a Muslim. They could not own an enslaved Muslim and had to wear different clothing from Muslims to be distinguishable. In addition to the jizya tax, they were required to pay the kharaj tax on their land, which was heavier than the jizya. However, they were protected, given religious freedom, and to govern themselves according to their own laws.
As non-Islamic proselytising was punishable by death under Sharia, the Assyrians were forced into preaching in Transoxiana, 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 Church in Europe and the Byzantine Empire (Greek Orthodoxy).
From the 7th century AD onwards, Mesopotamia saw a steady influx of Arabs, Kurds and other Iranian peoples, and later Turkic peoples. Assyrians were increasingly marginalized, persecuted and gradually became a minority in their homeland. Conversion to Islam was a result of heavy taxation, which also resulted in decreased revenue from their rulers. As a result, the new converts migrated to Muslim garrison towns nearby.
Despite the influx of other peoples into the region, under the leadership of Mar Timothy I (780-823), the Church of the East reached a high point and Christians presumably constituted 40 percent of Mesopotamia's population. During the early Islamic period, the majority of the population of countries under Arab Islamic rule remained Christian. Prior to 850 AD, Muslims only made up 20 percent of the population of the Abbasid Caliphate, shifting to a majority after 950 AD. The rise of a solid Muslims majority in Syria and Mesopotamia can be dated to the late 10th or 11th centuries. Large Christian minorities persisted into the 13th century when we finally see a decisive move toward Muslim hegemony.
Assyrians remained dominant in Upper Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century, with Syriac being the primary language centuries after the Arab invasions. (2025). 9789047409083, Brill. ISBN 9789047409083 and the city of Assur was still occupied by Assyrians during the Islamic period until the mid-14th century when the Muslim Turco-Mongol ruler Timur conducted a religiously motivated massacre against Assyrians. After, no records of Assyrians remained in Assur according to the archaeological and numismatic record. From this point, the Assyrian population was dramatically reduced in their homeland.
From the 19th century, after the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, the Ottomans started viewing Assyrians and other Christians on their eastern front as a potential threat. The Kurdish Emirs sought to consolidate their power by attacking Assyrian communities, which were already well-established there. Scholars estimate that tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari region were massacred in 1843 when Bedr Khan Beg, the emir of Bohtan, invaded their region. After a later massacre in 1846, western powers forced the Ottomans into intervening in the region, and the ensuing conflict destroyed the Kurdish emirates and reasserted the Ottoman power in the area. The Assyrians were subject to the massacres of Diyarbakır soon after.
Being culturally, ethnically, and linguistically distinct from their Muslim neighbors in the Middle East—the Arabs, Persian people, Kurds, Turkish people—the Assyrians have endured much hardship throughout their recent history as a result of religious and ethnic persecution by these groups.
According to some Arab historians, Assyrians persisted in the regions of Hakkari and Assyria (Mosul), though during the Seljuk and subsequent Timurid invasions of Assyrian regions, Kurds joined Turco-Mongol forces in advancing on Mesopotamian cities such as Diyarbakir, Mosul and Baghdad. Population destruction transpired in the region such as the attacks led by Timur in the late 1300s.
The 14th century massacres of Timur 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, 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 the in Iran-based Turkic confederations of the Aq Qoyunlu and Kara Koyunlu. Subsequently, all Assyrians, like with the rest of the ethnicities living in the former Aq Qoyunlu territories, fell into Safavid dynasty hands from 1501 and on.
The Aramaic-speaking Mesopotamian Christians had long been divided between followers of the Church of the East, commonly referred to as "Nestorianism", and followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, commonly called Jacob Baradaeus. The latter were organised by Marutha of Tikrit (565–649) as 17 dioceses under a "Metropolitan of the East" or "Maphrian", holding the highest rank in the Syriac Orthodox Church after that of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and All the East. The Maphrian resided at Tikrit until 1089, when he moved to the city of Mosul for half a century, before settling in the nearby Monastery of Mar Mattai (still belonging to the Syriac Orthodox Church) and thus not far from the residence of the Eliya line of Patriarchs of the Church of the East. From 1533, the holder of the office was known as the Maphrian of Mosul, to distinguish him from the Maphrian of the Patriarch of Tur Abdin.[2] "Maphrian Catholicos Syr. Orth." in Gorgias Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Syriac Heritage
In 1552, a group of bishops of the Church of the East from the northern regions of Amid and Salmas, who were dissatisfied with reservation of patriarchal succession to members of a single family, even if the designated successor was little more than a child, elected as a rival patriarch the abbot of the Rabban Hormizd Monastery, Yohannan Sulaqa. This was by no means the first schism in the Church of the East. An example is the attempt to replace Timothy I (779–823) with Ephrem of Gandīsābur.
By tradition, a patriarch could be ordained only by someone of archiepiscopal (metropolitan) rank, a rank to which only members of that one family were promoted. For that reason, Sulaqa travelled to Rome, where, presented as the new Patriarch elect, he entered communion with the Catholic Church and was ordained by the Pope and recognized as Patriarch. The title or description under which he was recognized as Patriarch is given variously as "Patriarch of Mosul in Eastern Syria"; "Patriarch of the Church of the Chaldeans of Mosul"; Chaldaeorum ecclesiae Musal Patriarcha ( Giuseppe Simone Assemani (editor), Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana (Rome 1725), vol. 3, part 1, p. 661) "Patriarch of the Chaldeans"; "Patriarch of Mosul"; or "Patriarch of the Eastern Assyrians", this last being the version given by Pietro Strozzi on the second-last unnumbered page before page 1 of his De Dogmatibus Chaldaeorum, of which an English translation is given in Adrian Fortescue's Lesser Eastern Churches.In his contribution "Myth vs. Reality" to JAA Studies, Vol. XIV, No. 1, 2000 p. 80 , George V. Yana (Bebla) presented as a "correction" of Strozzi's statement a quotation from an unrelated source (cf. p. xxiv) that Sulaqa was called "Patriarch of the Chaldeans".
Mar Shimun VIII Yohannan Sulaqa returned to northern Mesopotamia in the same year and fixed his seat in Amid. Before being imprisoned for four months and then in January 1555 put to death by the governor of Amadiya at the instigation of the rival Patriarch of Alqosh, of the Eliya line, he ordained two metropolitans and three other bishops, thus beginning a new ecclesiastical hierarchy: the patriarchal line known as the Shimun line. The area of influence of this patriarchate soon moved from Amid east, fixing the see, after many changes, in the isolated village of Qochanis.
The Shimun line eventually drifted away from Rome and in 1662 adopted a profession of faith incompatible with that of Rome. Leadership of those who wished communion with Rome passed to the Archbishop of Amid Joseph I, recognized first by the Turkish civil authorities (1677) and then by Rome itself (1681). A century and a half later, in 1830, headship of the Catholics (the Chaldean Catholic Church) was conferred on Yohannan Hormizd, a member of the family that for centuries had provided the patriarchs of the legitimist "Eliya line", who had won over most of the followers of that line. Thus the patriarchal line of those who in 1553 entered communion with Rome are now patriarchs of the "traditionalist" wing of the Church of the East, that which in 1976 officially adopted the name "Assyrian Church of the East".
In the 1840s many of the Assyrians 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.
Another major massacre of Assyrians (and Armenians) in the Ottoman Empire occurred between 1894 and 1897 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.
The Assyrians suffered a number of religiously and ethnically motivated massacres throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, culminating in the large-scale Hamidian massacres of unarmed men, women and children by Muslim Turks and Kurds in the late 19th century at the hands of the Ottoman Empire and its associated (largely Kurdish and Arab) militias, which further greatly reduced numbers, particularly in southeastern Turkey.
The most significant recent persecution against the Assyrian population was the Sayfo which occurred during the First World War. Between 500,000 and 750,000 Anatolian Assyrians were estimated to have been slaughtered by the armies of the Ottoman Empire and their Kurdish allies between 1895-1919, totalling up to two-thirds of the entire Assyrian population of Turkey.
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.The Plight of Religious Minorities: Can Religious Pluralism Survive? – Page 51 by United States Congress
During World War I, the Assyrians suffered heavy losses due to deportations and mass killings organized by the Ottoman Turks. Several representatives of the Assyrian people participated in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, after the war had ended. These representatives aimed to establish an independent nation and sought to persuade the victorious powers to place it under a single mandatory authority. Although many sympathized with the Assyrians, none of their demands were implemented. Their efforts failed due to geographical and denominational divisions among themselves, as well as the fact that the major powers—Britain and France—had their own plans for the territories where the Assyrians lived.Lundgren, Svante (2020), THE FAILURE OF THE ASSYRIAN LOBBIES AT THE PARIS PEACE CONFERENCE IN 1919.
In nearby Tur Abdin, Assyrians in of Azakh and Iwardo held defenses against Ottoman and Kurdish soldiers and succeeded in fending off the attacks. Ottoman authorities labeled these defenses as part of the larger Midyat rebellion, which they used to justify the planned sieges against them. Additionally, they knew that they were acting against populations who were not Armenian, as the Assyrians had up to then been divided by the millet system based on religious differences. The defenses lasted for several months up to the end of 1915. For Assyrians who originate from Tur Abdin, the stories of the defenses remain integral to their identity and collective memory of Sayfo.
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,Len Dieghton, Blood Sweat and Tears and were used to help the British put down insurrections among the Arabs and Kurds. 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 subduing the pro-Nazi Iraqi forces at the battle of Habbaniyah 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 Assyrian civilians were slaughtered during the Simele massacre by the Iraqi Army in August 1933. The events lead to the expulsion of Shimun XXI Eshai the Catholicos Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East to the United States where resided until his death in 1975.
The period from the 1940s through to 1963 saw a period of respite for the Assyrians. The regime of President Abd al-Karim Qasim in particular saw the Assyrians accepted into mainstream society. Many urban Assyrians became successful businessmen, others were well represented in politics and the military, their towns and villages flourished undisturbed, and Assyrians came to excel, and be over represented in sports.
The Ba'ath Party seized power in Iraq and Syria in 1963, introducing laws aimed at suppressing the Assyrian national identity via arabization policies. The giving of traditional Assyrian names was banned and Assyrian schools, political parties, churches and literature were repressed. Assyrians were heavily pressured into identifying as Iraqi Christians or Syrian Christians. Assyrians were not recognized as an ethnic group by the governments and they fostered divisions among Assyrians along religious lines (e.g. Assyrian Church of the East vs. Chaldean Catholic Church vs Syriac Orthodox Church)., early 20th century]]
In response to Baathist persecution, the Assyrians of the Zowaa movement within the Assyrian Democratic Movement took up armed struggle against the Iraqi government in 1982 under the leadership of Yonadam Kanna, and then joined up with the Iraqi-Kurdistan Front in the early 1990s. Yonadam Kanna in particular was a target of the Saddam Hussein Ba'ath government for many years.
The Anfal genocide of 1986–1989 in Iraq, which was intended to target Kurdish opposition, resulted in 2,000 Assyrians being murdered through its gas campaigns. Over 31 towns and villages, 25 Assyrian monasteries and churches were razed to the ground. Some Assyrians were murdered, others were deported to large cities, and their lands and homes then being appropriated by Arabs and Kurds. (2025). 9789155483036, Uppsala University. ISBN 9789155483036
However, comparing to Syria, the Ba'athist government in Iraq was not as repressive as Syria. Saddam Hussein had an Assyrian Deputy Prime Minister and foreign minister, who was Tariq Aziz. There were also many Assyrians, who were offered high positions in the government.
Social unrest and chaos resulted in the unprovoked persecution of Assyrians in Iraq mostly by Islamic extremists (both Shia and Sunni) and Kurdish nationalists (ex. Dohuk Riots of 2011 aimed at Assyrians & Yazidis). 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 Muslims attacking Assyrian communities. Since the start of the Iraq war, at least 46 churches and monasteries have been bombed.
In recent years, the Assyrians in northern Iraq and northeast Syria have become the target of extreme unprovoked Islamic terrorism. As a result, Assyrians have taken up arms alongside other groups, such as the Kurds, Turcomans and Armenians, in response to unprovoked attacks by Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIL), Nusra Front and other terrorist Islamic Fundamentalist groups. In 2014 Islamic terrorists of ISIL attacked Assyrian towns and villages in the Assyrian Homeland of northern Iraq, together with cities such as Mosul and Kirkuk which have large Assyrian populations. There have been reports of atrocities committed by ISIL terrorists since, including; beheadings, crucifixions, child murders, rape, forced conversions, ethnic cleansing, robbery, and extortion in the form of illegal taxes levied upon non-Muslims. Assyrians in Iraq have responded by forming armed militias to defend their territories.
In response to the Islamic State's invasion of the Assyrian homeland in 2014, many Assyrian organizations also formed their own independent fighting forces to combat ISIL and potentially retake their "ancestral lands." These include the Nineveh Plain Protection Units, Dwekh Nawsha, and the Nineveh Plain Forces. The latter two of these militias were eventually disbanded.
In Syria, the Dawronoye modernization movement has influenced Assyrian identity in the region. The largest proponent of the movement, the Syriac Union Party (SUP) has become a major political actor in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. In August 2016, the Ourhi Centre in the city of Qamishli was started by the Assyrian community, to educate teachers in order to make Syriac an optional language of instruction in public schools, which then started with the 2016/17 academic year. With that academic year, states the Rojava Education Committee, "three curriculums have replaced the old one, to include teaching in three languages: Kurdish, Arabic and Assyrian." Associated with the SUP is the Syriac Military Council, an Assyrian militia operating in Syria, established in January 2013 to protect and stand up for the national rights of Assyrians in Syria as well as working together with the other communities in Syria to change the current government of Bashar al-Assad. Syriacs establish military council in Syria , Hürriyet Daily News, 2 February 2013 However, many Assyrians and the organizations that represent them, particularly those outside of Syria, are critical of the Dawronoye movement.
A 2018 report stated that Kurdish authorities in Syria, in conjunction with Dawronoye officials, had shut down several Assyrian schools in Northern Syria and fired their administration. This was said to be because these schooled failed to register for a license and for rejecting the new curriculum approved by the Education Authority. Closure methods ranged from officially shutting down schools to having armed men enter the schools and shut them down forcefully. An Assyrian educator named Isa Rashid was later badly beaten outside of his home for rejecting the Kurdish self-administration's curriculum. The Assyrian Policy Institute claimed that an Assyrian reporter named Souleman Yusph was arrested by Kurdish forces for his reports on the Dawronoye-related school closures in Syria. Specifically, he had shared numerous photographs on Facebook detailing the closures.
In ancient times, Akkadian-speaking Assyrians have existed in what is now Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, among other modern countries, due to the sprawl of the Neo-Assyrian empire in the region. Though recent settlement of Christian Assyrians in Nusaybin, Qamishli, Al-Hasakah, Al-Qahtaniyah, Al Darbasiyah, Al-Malikiyah, Amuda, Tel Tamer and a few other small towns in Al-Hasakah Governorate in Syria, occurred in the early 1930s,Betts, Robert Brenton, Christians in the Arab East (Atlanta, 1978) when they fled from northern Iraq after they were targeted and slaughtered during the Simele massacre.Dodge, Bayard, "The Settlement of the Assyrians on the Khabur," Royal Central Asian Society Journal, July 1940, pp. 301–320. The Assyrians in Syria did not have Syrian citizenship and title to their established land until late the 1940s.Rowlands, J., "The Khabur Valley," Royal Central Asian Society Journal, 1947, pp. 144–149.
Sizable Assyrian populations only remain in Syria, where an estimated 400,000 Assyrians live, and in Iraq, where an estimated 300,000 Assyrians live. This is a decline from an estimate of 1,100,000 Assyrians in the 1980s, following instability caused by the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. In Iran and Turkey, only small populations remain, with only 20,000 Assyrians in Iran, and a small but growing Assyrian population in Turkey, where 25,000 Assyrians live, mostly in the cities and not the ancient settlements. In Tur Abdin, a traditional centre of Assyrian culture, there are only 2,500 Assyrians left. Down from 50,000 in the 1960 census, but up from 1,000 in 1992. This sharp decline is due to an intense conflict between Turkey-PKK War in the 1980s. However, there are an estimated 25,000 Assyrians in all of Turkey, with most living in Istanbul. Most Assyrians currently reside in Western world due to the centuries of persecution by the neighboring Muslims. Prior to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, in a 2013 report by a Chaldean Syriac Assyrian Popular Council official, it was estimated that 300,000 Assyrians remained in Iraq.
During the eras of Mongol rule under Genghis Khan and 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, and the al-Anfal campaign.
]] Since the Assyrian genocide, many Assyrians have left the Middle East entirely for a more safe and comfortable life in the countries of the Western world. As a result of this, the Assyrian population in the Middle East has decreased dramatically. As of today there are more Assyrians in the diaspora than in their homeland. The largest Assyrian diaspora communities are found in:
By ethnic percentage, the largest Assyrian diaspora communities are located in Södertälje in Stockholm County, (2019). 9789198410174, Nineveh Press. ISBN 9789198410174 Sweden, and in Fairfield City in Sydney, Australia, where they are the leading ethnic group in the suburbs of Fairfield, Fairfield Heights, Prairiewood and Greenfield Park.Fairfield City Council 2003, State of the Community Report, Fairfield City Council, Wakeley.Kinarah: Twentieth Anniversary of Assyrian Australian Association 1989, Assyrian Australian Association, Edensor Park. There is also a sizable Assyrian community in Melbourne, Australia (Broadmeadows, Meadow Heights and Craigieburn)Deniz, F. 2000, 'Maintenance and Transformation of Ethnic Identity: the Assyrian Case', The Assyrian Australian Academic Journal In the United States, Assyrians are mostly found in Chicago (Niles and Skokie), Detroit (Sterling Heights, and West Bloomfield Township), Phoenix, Modesto (Stanislaus County) and Turlock. Thrown to the Lions , Doug Bandow, The America Spectator
Small Assyrian communities are found in San Diego, Sacramento and Fresno in the United States, Toronto in Canada and also in London, UK (London Borough of Ealing). In German Assyrians, pocket-sized Assyrian communities are scattered throughout Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin and Wiesbaden. In Paris, France, the commune of Sarcelles has a small number of Assyrians. Assyrians in the Netherlands mainly live in the east of the country, in the province of Overijssel. In Russia, small groups of Assyrians mostly reside in Krasnodar Kray and Moscow.
To note, the Assyrians residing in California and Russia tend to be from Iran, whilst those in Chicago and Sydney are predominantly Iraqi Assyrians. More recently, Syrian Assyrians are growing in size in Sydney after a huge influx of new arrivals in 2016, who were granted asylum under the federal government's special humanitarian intake. The facts about Syrian refugees and Fairfield by SSI News Blog, 23 February 2017 Fairfield struggles to cope after threefold increase in refugee arrivals by Penny Timms from ABC News, 3 January 2017 The Assyrians in Detroit are primarily Chaldean speakers, who also originate from Iraq." Arab, Chaldean, and Middle Eastern Children and Families in the Tri-County Area." ( Archive) From a Child's Perspective: Detroit Metropolitan Census 2000 Fact Sheets Series. Wayne State University. Volume 4, Issue 2, February 2004. p. 2/32. Retrieved on November 8, 2013. Assyrians in such European countries as Sweden and Germany would usually be Turoyo-speakers or Western Assyrians,B. Furze, P. Savy, R. Brym, J. Lie, Sociology in Today's World, 2008, p. 349 and tend to be originally from Turkey.
Today, Assyrians and other minority ethnic groups in West Asia, feel pressure to identify as "Arabs", "Turks" and "Kurds". In addition, Western media often makes no mention of any ethnic identity of the Christians in the region, and simply call refer to them as Christians, Iraqi Christians, Iranian Christians, Christians in Syria, and Turkish Christians, labels which are typically rejected by Assyrians.
This version of the name took hold in the Hellenic lands to the west of the old Assyrian Empire, thus during Greeks Seleucid rule from 323 BC the name Assyria was altered to Syria, and this term was also applied to areas west of Euphrates which had been an Assyrian colony, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.Herodotus, The Histories, VII.63, .
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 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.Tsereteli, Sovremennyj assirijskij jazyk, Moscow: Nauka, 1964. 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".
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 is not 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 endorses Āṯūrāyē ܐܬܘܪܝܐ or Sūryāyē.
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" in Neo-Aramaic. 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.Chamberlain, AF. "Notes on Some Aspects of the Folk-Psychology of Night". American Journal of Psychology, 1908 – JSTOR. A parent will often place an eye pendant on their baby to prevent "an evil eye being cast upon it".Gansell, AR. FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO MODERN SYRIA: ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON FEMALE ADORNMENT DURING RITES. Ancient Near Eastern Art in Context. 2007 – Brill Academic Publishers. Spitting on anyone or their belongings is seen as a grave insult.
Assyrians are endogamy, meaning they generally marry within their own ethnic group, although Exogamy marriages are not perceived as a taboo, unless the foreigner is of a different religious background, especially a Muslim. Throughout history, relations between the Assyrians and Armenians have tended to be Alliance, as both groups have practised Christianity since ancient times and have suffered through persecution under Muslim rulers. Therefore, mixed marriage between Assyrians and Armenians is quite common, most notably in Iraq, Iran, and as well as in the diaspora with adjacent Armenian and Assyrian communities.The Ethnic Minorities of Armenia, Garnik Asatryan, Victoria Arakelova.
By around 700 BCE, the Aramaic script began replacing cuneiform in the Assyrian Empire for administrative and diplomatic purposes, though cuneiform continued for royal and religious texts. 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 its influence on contemporary Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Assyrians is significant and some loaned vocabulary still survives in these languages to this day.Kaufman, Stephen A. (1974), The Akkadian influences on Aramaic. University of Chicago Press
To the native speaker, the language is usually called Surayt, Soureth, Suret or a similar regional variant. A wide variety of dialects exist, mainly Suret, and Turoyo language. All are classified as Neo-Aramaic languages and are usually written using Syriac alphabet, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic alphabet. Jewish Aramaic varieties such as Lishanid Noshan, Lishán Didán and Lishana Deni, written in the Hebrew script, are spoken by Assyrian Jews.Avenery, Iddo, The Aramaic Dialect of the Jews of Zakho. The Israel academy of Science and Humanities 1988.Geoffrey Khan (1999). A Grammar of Neo-Aramaic: the dialect of the Jews of Arbel. Leiden: EJ Brill.Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.
There is a considerable amount of mutual intelligibility between Suret dialects. Therefore, these "languages" would generally be considered to be dialects rather than separate languages. The Jewish Aramaic languages of Lishan Didan and Lishanid Noshan share a partial intelligibility with these varieties. The mutual intelligibility between Suret and Surayt/Turoyo is, depending on the dialect, limited to partial, and may be asymmetrical.
Being Stateless nation, Assyrians are typically multilingual, speaking both their native language and learning those of the societies they reside in. While many Assyrians have fled from their traditional homeland recently, a substantial number still reside in Arabic-speaking countries speaking Arabic language alongside the Neo-Aramaic languages and is also spoken by many Assyrians in the diaspora. The most commonly spoken languages by Assyrians in the diaspora are English language, German language and Swedish language. Historically many Assyrians also spoke Turkish language, Armenian, Azeri, Kurdish language, and Persian language and a smaller number of Assyrians that remain in Iran, Turkey (Istanbul and Tur Abdin) and Armenia still do today.
Many loanwords from the aforementioned languages exist in the Neo-Aramaic languages, with the Iranian languages and Turkish being the greatest influences overall. Only Turkey is reported to be experiencing a population increase of Assyrians in the four countries constituting their historical homeland, largely consisting of Assyrian refugees from Syria and a smaller number of Assyrians returning from the diaspora in Europe.
The oldest and classical form of the alphabet is the script.Hatch, William (1946). An album of dated Syriac manuscripts. Boston: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, reprinted in 2002 by Gorgias Press. p. 24. . Although ʾEsṭrangēlā is no longer used as the main script for writing Syriac, it has received some revival since the 10th century, and it has been added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999. The East Syriac dialect is usually written in the form of the alphabet, which is often translated as "contemporary", reflecting its use in writing modern Neo-Aramaic. The West Syriac dialect is usually written in the form of the alphabet. Most of the letters are clearly derived from ʾEsṭrangēlā, but are simplified, flowing lines.Eberhard Nestle (1888). Syrische Grammatik mit Litteratur, Chrestomathie und Glossar. Berlin: H. Reuther's Verlagsbuchhandlung. translated.
Furthermore, for practical reasons, Assyrian people sometimes use the Latin alphabet, especially in social media.
A small minority of Assyrians accepted the Reformation and became Reform Orthodox in the 20th century, possibly due to British influences, and are now organised in the Assyrian Evangelical Church, the Assyrian Pentecostal Church and other Protestant/Reform Orthodox Assyrian groups. While there are some atheist Assyrians, they tend to still associate with some denomination.
Many members of the following churches consider themselves Assyrian. Ethnic identities are often deeply intertwined with religion, a legacy of the 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:
Baptism and First Communion are celebrated extensively, similar to a Brit Milah 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.
During the "Seyfo" genocide, there were a number of Assyrians who were forced to convert to Islam. They reside in Turkey, and practice Islam but still retain their identity. A small number of Assyrian Jews exist as well.
Some well known Assyrian singers in modern times are Ashur Bet Sargis, Sargon Gabriel, Evin Agassi, Janan Sawa, Juliana Jendo, and Linda George. Assyrian artists that traditionally sing in other languages include Melechesh, Timz and Aril Brikha. Assyrian-Australian band Azadoota performs its songs in the Assyrian language whilst using a western style of instrumentation.
The first international Aramaic Music Festival was held in Lebanon in August 2008 for Assyrian people internationally.
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, Assyrians 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:
Assyrians practice unique marriage ceremonies. The rituals performed during weddings are derived from many different elements from the past 3,000 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.
In a 2006 study of the Y chromosome DNA of six regional Armenian people populations, including, for comparison, Assyrians and Syrian people, researchers found that, "the Semitic populations (Assyrians and 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, Turkmen people, the in Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait") found that Assyrians were homogeneous with respect to all other ethnic groups sampled in the study, regardless of religious affiliation.
In a 2011 study focusing on the genetics of Marsh Arabs of Iraq, researchers identified Y chromosome shared by Marsh Arabs, Iraqis, and Assyrians, "supporting a common local background." Al-Zahery et al., BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011, 11:288, "In search of the genetic footprints of Sumerians: a survey of Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation in the Marsh Arabs of Iraq" "In the less frequent J1-M267* clade, only marginally affected by events of expansion, Marsh Arabs shared haplotypes with other Iraqi and Assyrian samples, supporting a common local background." In a 2017 study focusing on the genetics of Northern Iraqi populations, it was found that Iraqi Assyrians and Iraqi Yazidis clustered together, but away from the other Northern Iraqi populations analyzed in the study, and largely in between the West Asian and Southeastern European populations. According to the study, "contemporary Assyrians and Yazidis from northern Iraq may in fact have a stronger continuity with the original genetic stock of the Mesopotamian people, which possibly provided the basis for the ethnogenesis of various subsequent Near Eastern populations".
Haplogroup T-M184 reported has been measured at 15.09% among Assyrians in Armenia. The haplogroup is frequent in Middle Eastern Jews, Georgian people, Druze people and Somali people. According to a 2011 study by Lashgary et al., R1b reported has been measured at 40% among Assyrians in Iran, making it major haplogroup among Iranian Assyrians. Yet another DNA test comprising 48 Assyrian male subjects from Iran, the Y-DNA haplogroups J-M304, found in its greatest concentration in the Arabian peninsula, and the northern R-M269, were also frequent at 29.2% each. Lashgary et al. explain the presence of haplogroup R in Iranian Assyrians as well as in other Assyrian communities (~23%) as a consequence of mixing with Armenians and assimilation/integration of different peoples carrying haplogroup R, while explain its frequency as a result of genetic drift due to small population size and endogamy due to religious barriers.
Haplogroup J2 has been measured at 13.4%, which is commonly found in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus, Anatolia, Italy, coastal Mediterranean, and the Iranian plateau.Semino O, Magri C, Benuzzi G, Lin AA, Al-Zahery N, Battaglia V, Maccioni L, Triantaphyllidis C, Shen P, Oefner PJ, Zhivotovsky LA, King R, Torroni A, Cavalli-Sforza LL, Underhill PA, Santachiara-Benerecetti AS: Origin, diffusion, and differentiation of Y-chromosome haplogroups E and J: inferences on the Neolithization of Europe and later migratory events in the Mediterranean area. Am J Hum Genet 2004, 74:1023–1034.
|
|
