Nusaybin

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Author:Laxman Burdak, IFS (R)

Nusaybin (pronounced [nuˈsajbin]) is a city and the seat of the Nusaybin District of the Mardin Province in Turkey.[1] The city is populated by Kurds of different tribal affiliation and had a population of 84,445 in 2021.[2][3]

Variants

Jat Gotras Namesake

Location

Nusaybin is separated from the larger Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli by the Syria–Turkey border.[10][11]

The city is at the foot of the Mount Izla escarpment at the southern edge of the Tur Abdin hills, standing on the banks of the Jaghjagh River (Turkish: Çağçağ), the ancient Mygdonius (Ancient Greek: Μυγδόνιος).[12]

History

The city existed in the Assyrian Empire and is recorded in Akkadian inscriptions as Naṣibīna.[13][14]

Having been part of the Achaemenid Empire, in the Hellenistic period the settlement was re-founded as a polis named "Antioch on the Mygdonius" by the Seleucid dynasty after the conquests of Alexander the Great.[15] A part of first the Roman Republic and then the Roman Empire, the city (Latin: Nisibis; Greek: Νίσιβις) was mainly Syriac-speaking, and control of it was contested between the Kingdom of Armenia, the Romans, and the Parthian Empire.[16]

After a peace treaty contracted between the Sasanian Empire and the Romans in 298 and enduring until 337, Nisibis was capital of Roman Mesopotamia and the seat of its governor (Latin: dux mesopotamiae). Jacob of Nisibis, the city's first known bishop, constructed its first cathedral between 313 and 320. Nisibis was a focus of international trade, and according to the Greek history of Peter the Patrician, the primary point of contact between Roman and Persian empires.[17]

Nisibis was besieged three times by the Sasanian army under Shapur II (r. 309–379) in the first half of the 4th century; each time, the city's fortifications held. The Syriac poet Ephrem the Syrian witnessed all three sieges, and praised Nisibis's successive bishops for their contributions to the defences in his Carmina Nisibena, 'song of Nisibis', while the Roman Caesar Julian (r. 355–363) described the third siege in his panegyric to his senior co-emperor, the augustus Constantius II (r. 337–361). The Roman soldier and Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus described Nisibis, fortified with walls, towers, and a citadel, as "the strongest bulwark of the Orient".[18]

After the defeat of the Romans in Julian's Persian War, Julian's successor Jovian (r. 363–364) was forced to cede the five Transtigritine provinces to the Persians, including Nisibis. The city was evacuated and its citizens forced to migrate to Amida (Diyarbakır) – which was expanded to accommodate them – and to Edessa (Urfa). According to the Latin historian Eutropius, the cession of Nisibis was supposed to last 120 years. Nisibis remained a major entrepôt; one of only three such cities of commercial exchange allowed by Roman law promulgated in 408/9. However, despite several Roman attempts to recapture Nisibis through the remainder of the Roman–Persian Wars and the construction of nearby Dara to defend against Persian attack, Nisibis was not returned to Roman control before it was conquered in 639 by the Rashidun Caliphate during the Muslim conquest of the Levant.[19]

Under Sasanian rule and after, Nisibis was a major centre of the Christian Church, and the bishop of Nisibis attended the Council of Seleucia-Ctesiphon convened in 410 by the emperor Yazdegerd I (r. 399–420). As a result of this council, the Church of the East was set up, and the bishop of Nisibis became the metropolitan bishop of the five erstwhile Transtigritine provinces. Narsai, formerly a theologian at the School of Edessa, founded the famous School of Nisibis with the bishop, Barsauma, in the 470s. When the Roman emperor Zeno (r. 474–491) closed the School of Edessa in 489, the scholars migrated to Nisibis's school and established the city as the foremost centre of Christian thought in the Church of the East. According to the Damascene monk John Moschus, the city's cathedral had five doors in the 7th century, and the monastic and later bishop of Harran, Symeon of the Olives, was recorded as having renewed several ecclesiastical buildings in the early period of Arab rule. The monasteries of the nearby Tur Abdin, led by the reforms of Abraham the Great of Kashkar, founder of the "Great Monastery" of Mount Izla, underwent substantial revival in the years after the Muslim conquest. However, besides the baptistery known as the Church of Saint Jacob (Mar Ya‘qub) and built in 359 by bishop Vologeses, little remains of ancient Nisibis, probably because of ruinous earthquake in 717. Archaeological excavations were conducted in the vicinity of the 4th-century baptistery in the early 21st century, revealing various buildings including the 4th-century cathedral.[20]

Mention by Pliny

Pliny[21] mentions Adiabene.... The kingdom of the Persians, by which we now understand that of Parthia, is elevated upon the Caucasian chain between two seas, the Persian and the Hyrcanian. To the Greater Armenia, which in the front slopes towards Commagene, is joined Sophene, which lies upon the descent1 on both sides thereof, and next to it is Adiabene, the most advanced frontier of Assyria; a part of which is Arbelitis,2 He alludes to the town of Arbela, where, as it is generally said, the army of Darius was defeated by Alexander the Great; by which engagement the conflict was terminated. It was the fact, however, that Darius left his baggage and treasures at Arbela, while the battle really took place near the village of Gaugamela, about twenty miles to the north-west of Arbela. This place still retains its name of Arbil, where Alexander conquered Darius, and which joins up to Syria. The whole of this country was called Mygdonia by the Macedonians, on account of the resemblance it bore to Mygdonia3 in Europe. Its cities are Alexandria,4 and Antiochia, also called Nisibis5; this last place is distant from Artaxata seven hundred and fifty miles. There was also in former times Ninus6, a most renowned city, on the banks of the Tigris, with an aspect towards the west. Adjoining the other front of Greater Armenia, which runs down towards the Caspian Sea, we find Atropatene7, which is separated from Otene, a region of Armenia, by the river Araxes; Gazæ8 is its chief city, distant from Artaxata four hundred and fifty miles, and the same from Ecbatana in Media, to which country Atropatene belongs.

1 35 See c. 10.

2 He alludes to the town of Arbela, where, as it is generally said, the army of Darius was defeated by Alexander the Great; by which engagement the conflict was terminated. It was the fact, however, that Darius left his baggage and treasures at Arbela, while the battle really took place near the village of Gaugamela, about twenty miles to the north-west of Arbela. This place still retains its name of Arbil.

3 A district in the east of Macedonia, bordering on the Thermaic gulf and the Chalcidic peninsula.

4 Nothing is known of this place. Hardouin suggests that it may have been built on the spot where Alexander defeated Darius.

5 Also known as Antiochia Mygdoniæ, the capital of Mygdonia. Its ruins are still to be seen near a place called Nisibin. It stood on the river Mygdonius, now the Nahral Huali.

6 Or Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian monarchy, destroyed by the Medes and Babylonians about B.C. 606.

7 There is great difficulty in ascertaining, from the accounts given by the ancient writers, the exact limits of this district, but it is supposed to have included a considerable portion of the province now known by the name of Azerbaijan. It derived its name from Atropates or Atropes, who was governor of this district under the last Darius.

8 Most probably the place now known as Gazæa, the royal residence of the Parthian kings, and, as its name would imply, their treasure city. Colonel Rawlinson thinks that this place underwent many changes of name according to the rulers who successively occupied it; among other names, it appears to have borne that of Ecbatana.

References

  1. ↑ "Türkiye Mülki İdare Bölümleri Envanteri". T.C. İçişleri Bakanlığı (in Turkish).
  2. ↑ Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). pp. 326–327, 341. ISBN 9789944360944.
  3. ↑ [Tan, Altan (2018). Turabidin'den Berriye'ye. Aşiretler - Dinler - Diller - Kültürler (in Turkish). pp. 326–327, 341. ISBN 9789944360944.]
  4. ↑ Avcıkıran, Adem (2009). Kürtçe Anamnez, Anamneza bi Kurmancî (in Kurdish and Turkish). p. 55.
  5. ↑ Thomas A. Carlson et al., “Nisibis — ܢܨܝܒܝܢ ” in The Syriac Gazetteer last modified June 30, 2014, http://syriaca.org/place/142.
  6. ↑ Montgomery, J. (1972). The quest for Noah's Ark. Minneapolis, Minnesota, the U.S.A.: Bethany Fellowship. pp. 1–335.
  7. ↑ Spencer, Lee; Lienard, Jean Luc (2009). "The Search For Noah's Ark". Southwestern Adventist University.
  8. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8,
  9. ↑ Mechanisms of Communication in the Assyrian Empire. "People, gods, & places." History Department, University College London, 2009.
  10. ↑ "Will Kurds find a ray of hope in 2020?". Al-Monitor. 2020-01-02.
  11. ↑ "Qamishli Kurds commemorate 2004 uprising". Syria Direct. 14 March 2016.
  12. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8,
  13. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8,
  14. ↑ Mechanisms of Communication in the Assyrian Empire. "People, gods, & places." History Department, University College London, 2009.
  15. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  16. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  17. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  18. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  19. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  20. ↑ Keser-Kayaalp, Elif (2018), Nicholson, Oliver (ed.), "Nisibis", The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780198662778.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-866277-8
  21. ↑ Natural History by Pliny Book VI/Chapter 16

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