Erbil or Arbil is the capital of modern Kurdistan, an independent province
in northern Iraq.
In antiquity the city was named Arbela,
situated north of the Mesopotamian plain where the Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between the armies of Alexander the Great and Great King Darius III of Persia. Erbil claims to be the world’s oldest
continuously occupied settlement (older than Damascus, I wonder?) going back at
least 6,000 years.
To the naked eye, Erbil has very little to offer to the curious archaeologist as many
houses from the 19th and 20th century are cramped inside the old city walls,
right on top of previous constructions. Most everything that is known about
this city comes from ancient texts and sporadic artifacts found at other sites
in Mesopotamia.
Since last year, the first traces of the
ancient city have been revealed thanks to ground-penetrating radar. Two large
structures in the center of the citadel may be the remains of the well-known
temple dedicated to the goddess of love and war, Ishtar, who was consulted by
the Assyrian kings for divine guidance. The Temple of Ishtar
is mentioned as early as the 13th century BC, although it may rest on a much
older sanctuary. It is said that her temple was made to “shine like the day”, a
possible indication that it was coated with electrum (a mixture of silver and
gold) that reflected the Mesopotamian sun.
Slowly these new finds give us an insight into
the history of Arbela and of its
growth since the rise of the mighty Assyrian Empire. This old city was located
on a fertile plain and was the local breadbasket for thousands of years. It
occupied a key position on the road connecting the Persian
Gulf to the Anatolian inland. It is obvious that this prime location
was coveted by many of its neighbors, of which the Sumerians may have been the
first invaders around 2,000 BC. It is here that Alexander the Great
became King of Asia in 331 BC after defeating the Persian King Darius in nearby Gaugamela.
Later invaders were the Romans, Genghis
Khan in the 13th century, the Afghan warlords in the 18th century and the
very recent occupation by Saddam Hussein. Yet, Arbela survived, unlike
other great Mesopotamian cities like Babylon or Nineveh.
Unfortunately during the twentieth century much
of ancient Arbela fell in
disrepair as refugees from the region’s conflicts replaced the town’s people
who moved to more spacious housing outside the citadel. Now that these refugees
also move to more comfortable accommodation, efforts are starting to renovate
the largely mud-brick dwellings. Conservation work enables archaeologists to
dig deeper into the mound, meanwhile listed as a World Heritage Site. With the help of aerial photos taken by the
British Royal Air Force in the 1950’s, American spy satellite images from the
1960’s, and Cold War satellite imagery, combined with the ancient cuneiform
tablets help to pinpoint the best locations for future digging.
It is still difficult to have a good
comprehensive overview of such a long history. As far as we know now, Arbela
was first mentioned on clay tablets unearthed at Ebla
(in modern Syria)
dating to circa 2300 BC. A few hundred years later, rulers of Ur
in southern Mesopotamia claim to have
destroyed the city during repeated and bloody campaigns. By 1200 BC, it is
known that it prospered as an important Assyrian trading post where
copper, cattle, pomegranates, pistachios, grain and grapes were common goods. At
the height of its power in the 7th century BC, Assyria
was ruled by kings like Sennacherib,
Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. A
court poem found in Nineveh praised the city
as “heaven without equal, Arbela!”, and its power is supported
by a stone relief from the 7th century BC found at Nineveh showing the formidable city
walls and arched gate.
By 612 BC the Assyrian Empire was destroyed and
the Medes (maybe the ancestors of today’s Kurds), spared and occupied Arbela,
which was still intact when the Persian King
Darius I came to power about a century later. Soon the Achaemenid Empire
stretched all the way from Egypt
to India till Alexander the Great defeated King
Darius III in the fall in of 331 BC on the plains of Gaugamela.
The Persian king fled across the Greater Zab River to Arbela’s citadel to seek
refuge in the Zagros Mountains where he was
eventually killed by his own men.
Arbela’s oldest fortification had a 20 meters thick wall with
a defensive slope, not unlike the one found at Nineveh, for instance. While most
fortifications were rectangular, the wall around Arbela was a round one,
enclosing both the citadel and the lower town – something we do find more to
the south, in cities like Ur or Uruk.
As houses in modern Erbil
are being abandoned, the archaeologists have a good opportunity to start their
investigations. It is very rewarding to discover a tomb with vaulted chamber of
baked bricks that can be dated to the 7th century BC and definitely is Assyrian.
Using modern technology, some 77 square miles
have been mapped containing some 214 archaeological sites going back as far as
8,000 years! It is not easy to account for a city’s history over such a long
period of time, especially when that city is still being inhabited. After the
Assyrians were gone came the Persians followed by the Greeks, and eventually Arbela
became an essential outpost on the Roman frontier and the capital of the Province of Assyria. With the spreading of
Christianity new communities flourished and the Sassanids ruled till the
arrival of Islam in the 7th century AD.
Even today, Erbil makes the headlines with the conflicts in northern Iraq.
Inevitably a great deal of the city’s heritage is doomed to disappear in modern
warfare, but let’s hope for the best. Maybe, just maybe one day we may discover
the treasures still buried underneath the old citadel and maybe even a small
proof that Alexander and his army were
here some 2,400 years ago.
