Assyrians are an indigenous ethnic group native to Assyria, a geographical region in Western Asia. Modern Assyrians descend from their ancient counterparts, originating from the ancient indigenous Mesopotamians of Akkad and Sumer, who first developed the civilisation in northern Mesopotamia that would become Assyria in 2600 BCE. Modern Assyrians may culturally self-identify as Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans for religious, geographic and tribal identification.
The Arameans, or Aramaeans, were an ancient Semitic-speaking people in the Near East, first recorded in historical sources from the late 12th century BCE. The Aramean homeland, sometimes known as the land of Aram, encompassed central regions of modern Syria. At the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE, a number of Aramean-ruling states were established throughout the western regions of the ancient Near East. The most notable was Aram-Damascus, which reached its height in the second half of the 9th century BCE during the reign of king Hazael. The Arameans were never a single nation or group; rather, Aram was a region with local centers of power spread throughout the Levant, making it almost impossible to establish a coherent ethnic category of “Aramean” based on extra-linguistic identity markers, such as material culture, lifestyle or religion. The people of "Aram" were called "Arameans" in Assyrian text and in the Old Testament, but “Aramean” was never a self-designation; "Arameans" is merely an appellation of the geographical term Aram given to 1st-millennium B.C. inhabitants of Syria. A distinctive Aramaic alphabet was developed and used to write the Old Aramaic language.
Aram was a historical region mentioned in early cuneiforms and in the Bible. The area of Aram did not develop into a bigger empire, it consisted of a number of small states in present-day Syria and northern Israel. Some of these states are mentioned in the Old Testament, Damascus being the most outstanding one, which came to encompass most of Syria. Furthermore, Aram-Damascus is commonly referred to as simply Aram in the Old Testament.
Arrapha or Arrapkha was an ancient city in what today is northeastern Iraq, thought to be on the site of the modern city of Kirkuk.
Assyria was a short-lived Roman province in Mesopotamia that was created by Trajan in 116 during his campaign against the Parthian Empire. After Trajan's death, the newly proclaimed emperor Hadrian ordered the evacuation of Assyria in 118.
Assyrians in Syria are an ethnic and linguistic minority that are indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia, the north-eastern half of Syria. Syrian-Assyrians are people of Assyrian descent living in Syria, and those in the Assyrian diaspora who are of Syrian-Assyrian heritage.
Ashur, Assur, or Asur may refer to:
The history of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity. This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources. While in the Paleolithic and early Neolithic periods only parts of Upper Mesopotamia were occupied, the southern alluvium was settled during the late Neolithic period. Mesopotamia has been home to many of the oldest major civilizations, entering history from the Early Bronze Age, for which reason it is often called a cradle of civilization.
The Assyrian homeland, Assyria refers to the homeland of the Assyrian people within which Assyrian civilisation developed, located in their indigenous Upper Mesopotamia. The territory that forms the Assyrian homeland is, similarly to the rest of Mesopotamia, currently divided between present-day Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria. In Iran, the Urmia Plain forms a thin margin of the ancestral Assyrian homeland in the north-west, and the only section of the Assyrian homeland beyond the Mesopotamian region. The majority of Assyrians in Iran currently reside in the capital city, Tehran.
Asoristan was the name of the Sasanian province of Assyria and Babylonia from 226 to 637.
Eber-Nari, Abar-Nahara עבר-נהרה (Aramaic) or 'Ābēr Nahrā (Syriac) meaning "Beyond the River" or "Across the River" in both the Akkadian and Imperial Aramaic languages of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, i.e., the Western bank of the Euphrates from a Mesopotamian and Persian viewpoint), also referred to as Transeuphratia by modern scholars, was a region of Western Asia and a satrapy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Neo-Babylonian Empire and Achaemenid Empire.
Terms for Syriac Christians are endonymic (native) and exonymic (foreign) terms, that are used as designations for Syriac Christians, as adherents of Syriac Christianity. In its widest scope, Syriac Christianity encompass all Christian denominations that follow East Syriac Rite or West Syriac Rite, and thus use Classical Syriac as their main liturgical language. Traditional divisions among Syriac Christians along denominational lines are reflected in the use of various theological and ecclesiological designations, both historical and modern. Specific terms such as: Jacobites, Saint Thomas Syrian Christians, Maronites, Melkites, Nasranis, and Nestorians have been used in reference to distinctive groups and branches of Eastern Christianity, including those of Syriac liturgical and linguistic traditions. Some of those terms are polysemic, and their uses have been a subject of terminological disputes between different communities, and also among scholars.
Assyrian nationalism is a movement of the Assyrian people that advocates for independence or autonomy within the regions they inhabit in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey.
The name Syria is latinized from the Greek Συρία. In toponymic typology, the term Syria is classified among choronyms. The origin and usage of the term has been the subject of interest, both among ancient writers and modern scholars. In early Greek usage, the terms Συρία (Suría) and Ασσυρία (Assuría) were used almost interchangeably to describe Assyria in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, but in the Roman Empire, the terms Syria and Assyria came to be used as names for distinct geographical regions. "Syria" in the Roman period referred to the region of Syria, while Assyria in Mesopotamia was part of the Sasanian Empire and only very briefly came under Roman control. Henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.
The Assyrian Pentecostal Church, is a Reformed Eastern Christian denomination that began in ethnically Assyrian villages across the Urmia region in northwestern Iran, spreading to the Assyrians living in the adjacent cities, and from there to indigenous Assyrian communities in the Assyrian Homeland, northern Iraq, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria.
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, ancient Iran, Anatolia/Asia Minor and the Armenian highlands, the Levant, Cyprus and the Arabian Peninsula. The ancient Near East is studied in the fields of Ancient Near East studies, Near Eastern archaeology and ancient history.
Assyrian continuity is the theory of continuity between the modern Assyrian people, an indigenous ethnic minority in the Middle East, and the people of ancient Assyria. Assyrian continuity is a key part of the identity of the modern Assyrian people. No evidence exists of the original Assyrian population being replaced in the aftermath of the fall of the Assyrian Empire, contemporary scholarship almost unilaterally supports Assyrian continuity, recognizing the modern Assyrians as descendants of the Aramaic-speaking populations of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which were composed of both the old native Assyrian population and of settlers in the Assyrian heartland.
The Jewish state refers to the modern-day state of Israel.
Syria or Sham is the name of a historical region located east of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia, broadly synonymous with the Levant. Other synonyms are Greater Syria or Syria-Palestine. The region boundaries have changed throughout history. In modern times, the term "Syria" alone is used to refer to the Syrian Arab Republic.
