Dancer on a camel entertaining crowds by the Aleppo citadel
Category Archives: People
Sheikh Khaz’al ibn Jabir palace and music band on post card mailed 23 Jan. 1909 from Bader Abbas.The Sheikh belonged to the Beni Ka’ab Arab tribe in the Ahwaz region along the Persian Gulf, friend of the British prior to WW1, was placed under house arrest in Tehran in 1925, when the Pahlevi dynasty forces occupied the region. the Ahwaz name was Persinized to Khuzistan, and in 1930 Sheikh Khaza’al’s Capital Mohammerah was changed to Khurramshahr. Sheikh Khaza’al at some point was considered strong candidate for the throne of Iraq was passed over, by King Faisal I. He died in Tehran while under house arrest, betrayed by his old friends, the British.
Jonas tomb in Ninevah across the Tigris from Mosul in northern Iraq 1922. The prophet Jonah, Jonas, Younes in Arabic, Younan in Assyrian, was 8th century B.C. prophet sent by God to warn the population of Ninevah about their ways. buried on one of the two mounds of old Ninevah, the Naby younes mound, the other mound being Kouynjuk, mound, extensively dug by archeologist Austen Layrd and Rassam in the 1840’s. A very important pilgrimmage site for Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Diyarbekir [Kara Amed] the capital of upper Mesopotamia, on the Tigris in South Eastern Turkey, home to Armenians,Chaldeans, Assyrians, Syrian Orthodox [Monophysites], Yezidis, Qizil Bash, and Kurds. Minarets and church bell towers seen in the background, prior to WW1. In the fore- ground, and on the roofs of the historical city, the dwellers slept in the heat of Mesopotamia
Nusaybin (also Nisibis). An ancient town fought over by the Persian and Roman empires. Major center for the monophysite Syrian church movement of the 5th and 6th centuries. Photo taken by German military assigned to the British POW of Kut in Mesopotamia in 1916 during their march to Anatolia . The shop keepers (Kurdish Jews) and their covered wives in white covers, migrated in mass to the Syrian town across the new border between Syria and Turkey post WW1 and formed the bulk of the Kurdish speaking Jewish community of Qamishli, considered the 3rd largest community of Syrian Jews after Aleppo and Damascus. The Berlin -Baghdad Railway ended at Nusaybin at break of WW1. Click here to read more.
A letter sent from the “Banque de Syrie et du Grand Liban” (Deir Ezzore branch) sent to the wife of archeologist Max Mallowan (Agatha Christie, famous British author). The back of the envelope is stamped in Qamishli, amouda and Hassakeh. Aghatha lived in a house built by her husband in Chagher Bazaar close to Amouda (Syria) where archaeological explorations were done and then moved to Tel Brak on the Jaghjagh river for more exploration over the Tel by her husband. They made frequent trips to Hassetche [Hassake] and Qamishli for picking up their mail and food shopping
Darak of Ddeir Ezzor Darak is a corruption of the word Dragoon, the horse mounted cavalery employed by most European states since the seventeenth century, and evolved into paramilita