Erbil Citadel

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Erbil Citadel
Aerial view of the Erbil Citadel

Aerial view of the Erbil Citadel

Alternative name (s): Kurdish Qelay Hewlêr or Kela Hewlêrê ; Arabic قلعة أربيل
Conservation status: Partly ruin
Geographical location 36 ° 11 ′ 28 "  N , 44 ° 0 ′ 33"  E Coordinates: 36 ° 11 ′ 28 "  N , 44 ° 0 ′ 33"  E
Height: 428  m above sea level NN
Erbil Citadel (Iraq)
Erbil Citadel

The citadel of Erbil ( Kurdish قەڵای ھەولێر Qelay Hewlêr or Q ela Hewlêrê , Arabic قلعة أربيل, DMG Qalʿat ʾArbīl ) is a fortified tell in the middle of the old town of Erbil , the capital of the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Iraq . According to UNESCO , the citadel is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world.

The earliest traces of settlement go back to the 5th millennium BC, possibly even earlier. In the written sources, the citadel is mentioned for the first time during the Ur-III period . It gained importance at the time of the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; under the Sassanids and Abbasids , Erbil was an important center of Christianity. After the Mongol conquest in 1258, Erbil lost its importance. In the 20th century the citadel went through great changes and a number of buildings and houses were destroyed. In 2007 the High Commission for Erbil Citadel Revitalization (HCECR) was established to oversee the restoration work. For this purpose, all residents except for one family were relocated and a restoration project began. Archaeological investigations were also carried out with foreign working groups and local researchers.

The UNESCO raised the Citadel in June 2014 in the status of a World Heritage Site .

history

prehistory

It is not known since when the place of the citadel was inhabited. Pottery shards found at the foot of the hill could date from the Neolithic Age. There are sure traces from the Copper Age. From this period pottery was found that can be assigned to the Obed and Uruk cultures . This is why the citadel is considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the world.

From Sumer to the Sassanids

Erbil appears for the first time in writing under the name Urbilem at the end of the 3rd millennium BC: King Šulgi from the 3rd dynasty of Sumer destroyed Urbilum in his 43rd year of reign and during the reign of his son and successor Amar-Sin , Urbilum was part of the Sumerian Rich. In the 18th century BC Urbilum appears in a list of places that are assigned to the rulers Šamši-Adad I from Assyria and Dāduša from Ešnunna . Šamši-Adad I stationed a garrison in the city and used Erbil as a starting point for military campaigns to the east.

In the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Erbil - known as Arbi-Ilu - was an important city. She participated in the great revolt of Aššur-dayyin-apli against his brother Šamši-Adad V because of the succession of her father Šulmanu-ašared III. part. As a religious center, Erbil was equivalent to the cities of Babylon and Aššur , as the Ištar of Arbela , who was one of the most important deities of Assyria, was worshiped here . Their temple was restored and maintained by kings like Salmānu-ašarēd I , Aššur-aḫḫe-iddina and Aššur-bāni-apli . In an inscription, Aššur-bāni-apli mentions dreams that came from the goddess Ištar. Aššur-bāni-apli probably also held court in Erbil and received the ambassadors of other kings there.

After the end of the Assyrian Empire, Erbil became the property of the Medes , who then became part of the Persian Achaemenid Empire , which was then subjugated to Erbil by Alexander the Great in 331 BC after the battle of Gaugamela near Erbil . Later the Romans fought against the Parthians for supremacy in the region. The city became an important Christian center and was also the seat of governor of the Sassanids , the successors of the Parthians. In 340 Christians were persecuted, and when the governor himself converted to Christianity in 358, he died a martyr . Around 521 the Christian Nestorians founded a school in Erbil. During this time there was also a Zoroastrian fire temple in the city.

From the Muslim conquest to the Ottomans

The Mongols besiege Erbil in 1258 (miniature from the 15th century)

Erbil was conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century . Nevertheless, it remained an important Christian center until the 9th century, when the bishop moved his seat from Erbil to Mosul . From the first half of the 12th century to 1233 Erbil was the capital of the Begteginids , a Turkmen dynasty that flourished under the rule of the Zengids of Mosul. The second Begteginid Atabeg Gökböri founded a city around the citadel and had hospitals and madrasas built. He died in 1233 without an heir, so that Erbil passed into the possession of the Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir .

When the Mongols invaded the Middle East in the 13th century, they attacked Erbil for the first time in 1237. They sacked the lower city and withdrew from an advancing army without having captured the citadel. In 1258, the caliph's capital, Baghdad, fell to the Mongols and was destroyed. In the same year they marched against Erbil again and this time were able to take the citadel after a six-month siege. They appointed a Christian to be the steward, and so they again became more influential in the city. But the persecution of Christians began as early as 1289, which culminated in 1310 with a massacre of all Christians in Erbils.

During the Ottoman rule, Erbil was part of the Eyâlets Baghdad, which was created in 1535. In 1743 the city was briefly owned by the Iranian Afsharid Nadir Shah , who had besieged the city for 60 days. An engraving from 1820 shows that the citadel and the plain to the south were inhabited. Mohammed Pascha Rewanduz , lord of the Kurdish principality of Soran , rebelled against his Ottoman overlords in 1830 and conquered large parts of what is now northern Iraq, including Erbil in 1832. In 1892 about 3,200 people lived in the city, which also had a larger Jewish community.

Modern period

Important urban and social changes took place during the 20th century. A 15 m high steel water tank was installed in 1924 to provide the residents with clean water, but the foundations were damaged by seeping water. The population continued to decline as the richer people moved into modern homes with gardens in the growing city outside the citadel. In 1960, 60 houses, a mosque and a school were demolished to make way for the main road from the north to the south gate. In 2007 the remaining 840 families were relocated in order to restore the citadel as part of a project and to preserve its historical character. The families received financial compensation. Only one family was allowed to stay so that there would be no interruption in the 8,000-year-old settlement of the citadel. After the completion of the project, 50 families should be allowed to move into the citadel again. In 2004 the Kurdish Textile Museum was opened in the southwestern part of the citadel .

Architecture and construction

Houses in the citadel on the main road from north to south

The citadel is located on a large, almost oval settlement hill that is between 25 and 32 m high. The area on the hill is 430 by 340 m and has an area of ​​102,000 m². The subsoil was found 36 m below the surface. The slope of the slope is about 45 °. Three ramps (north, east and south) lead up to the outer ring. The southern gate is the oldest of the three entrances and was repaired at least once in 1860. It was damaged in 1960 and rebuilt in 1979. The eastern gate was known as the "harem gate" and was used by women. It is not clear when the northern gate was built, one source speaks from 1924, while other sources from 1944 only know two gates.

In the early 20th century there were three mosques , two schools, two tekkes and a hammam in the citadel , and there was still a synagogue until 1957 . Of the religious institutions, only the Mulla Afandi Mosque remains today, which was built on the site of a mosque from the early 19th century. The hammam was built by Qassim Agha Abdullah in 1775 and was in use until the 1970s. In 1979 it was renovated, but many architectural details were lost.

When the citadel was still inhabited, there were three districts ( machalla ): from east to west the Serai , the Takya and the Topkhana . The noble families lived in the Serai quarter (palace quarter), the dervishes in Takya (von Tekke) and the craftsmen and farmers in the Topkhan quarter (arsenal quarter). In 1920 the citadel was still divided into 506 plots, since then the number of inhabitants has steadily decreased. In 1984 4466 people lived here in 375 houses and in 1995 only 1631 in 247 houses. Before the north-south thoroughfare was built, all paths started out like trees from the southern gate. The paths were between 1 and 2.5 m wide and up to 300 m long; there were also shorter dead ends.

The edge of the citadel does not have a continuous wall, but consists of about 100 houses closely lined up. To prevent the houses from falling over the edge, the facades were reinforced with struts. There were about 30 plush, palace-like buildings, most of which stood in the outer part of the citadel. The oldest house still standing today dates from 1893. The houses in the southeast quarter are the older, while the houses in the north are from the 1930s and 1940s. The traditional architectural style was to build the houses around a courtyard. The roofs were flat and the path into the courtyard was angled from the door so that one had no direct view of the door into the courtyard.

Investigations and restorations

Restored house facades on the south side of the citadel

In 2006 and 2007, the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and Salahaddin University carried out a detailed study and evaluation of the entire citadel in cooperation. For this purpose, geodetic measurements were carried out and these were combined with satellite images, other photographs and aerial photographs to create a digital 3D model. In some sections, geophysical studies were done to find traces of older buildings under the current houses. Excavations have been carried out on the western slope and in a small area in the eastern part of the citadels.

In the course of construction work in 2009, a Neo-Assyrian burial chamber was discovered at the foot of the hill. The chamber was then examined by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). The grave had already been looted in ancient times, but still contained pottery from the 8th or 7th century BC. In the following year, the DAI continued to work on the grave with the local authorities and discovered other structural structures, possibly from the same period, and other graves from later centuries.

In 2007 the Kurdish regional government founded the HCECR in order to preserve and restore the citadel with the help of UNESCO . The HCECR advocates a zone of 300–400 m around the citadel, in which the houses must not be higher than ten meters. That would ensure that the citadel rises above the city. On January 8, 2010, Iraq applied for the citadel to be included in the UNESCO World Heritage List . In March 2010, the HCECR and UNESCO agreed that the Erbil Governorate would finance the restoration project with US $ 13 million. The first work was carried out in June 2010.

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Web links

Commons : Citadel of Erbil  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Erbil Citadel - UNESCO World Heritage Center. whc.unesco.org, accessed August 30, 2010 .
  2. ↑ Erbil Citadel. UNESCO - World Heritage Committee , June 2014, accessed June 21, 2014 .
  3. ↑ Nováček, Chabr, Filipský, Janiček: Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season. 2008, p. 276.
  4. ^ A b c d Naval Intelligence Division: Iraq and the Persian Gulf. 1944, p. 529.
  5. ^ A b Villard, Joannès: Dictionnaire de la civilization mésopotamienne. 2001.
  6. ^ Eidem: News from the eastern front: the evidence from Tell Shemshāra. 1985, p. 83.
  7. ↑ Nováček, Chabr, Filipský, Janiček: Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season. 2008, p. 260.
  8. ↑ a b c d Sourdel, Cahen et al .: Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2010.
  9. ^ Morony: Iraq after the Muslim conquest. 1984, p. 359.
  10. ^ Morony: Iraq after the Muslim conquest. 1984, p. 132.
  11. ^ Woods: A note on the Mongol capture of Isfahān. 1977, pp. 49-50.
  12. ↑ Nováček, Chabr, Filipský, Janiček: Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season. 2008, p. 261.
  13. ↑ a b c History. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 19, 2011 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  14. ↑ Historical Evolution. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 6, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  15. ↑ Qassim Khidhir Hamad: The pride of erbil needs urgent care. niqash.org, archived from the original on May 8, 2010 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  16. ↑ Ivan Watson: Kurds Displaced in Effort to Preserve Ancient City. npr.org, accessed October 19, 2011 .
  17. ↑ a b c Nováček, Chabr, Filipský, Janiček: Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season. 2008, p. 262.
  18. ↑ a b Mahallas. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 4, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  19. ^ The Mosque. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 3, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  20. ^ The Hammam. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on July 5, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  21. ^ Alleyways. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 3, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  22. ^ Perimeter Wall. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 4, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  23. ↑ a b Houses. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on March 9, 2012 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  24. ↑ ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE 01. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on July 5, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  25. ↑ Urban Growth. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on March 9, 2012 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  26. ↑ Nováček, Chabr, Filipský, Janiček: Research of the Arbil Citadel, Iraqi Kurdistan, First Season. 2008.
  27. ↑ Kehrer: German experts examine Assyrian tomb in Arbil. 2009.
  28. ↑ Kehrer: German archaeologists are working in Iraq again. 2010.
  29. ^ The Citadel & The City. erbilcitadel.org, archived from the original on April 2, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2010 .
  30. ↑ McDermid: A Face-lift for an Ancient Kurdish Citadel. 2010.