EUPHRATES RIVER AND VALLEY

Euphrates River, northern Syria, courtesy, FerrellJenkins.blog

The Euphrates River could be described as the “Nile” of the Arab-occupied territory of Iraq and is mentioned in the Book of Genesis as one of the four rivers that sprang forth from the Garden of Eden. The Euphrates begins in the highlands of, what is today, eastern and southeastern Turkey, historically Armenian and Kurdish territories, and is formed by the confluence of the Kara Su and Murat Su Rivers. It continues through northern and eastern Syria and through central and southern “Iraq”, historically Kurdish and Assyrian territories. Towards its southern course, it joins the Tigris and finally empties into the northernmost coast of the Persian Gulf. This area is the traditional dwelling place of the so-called “Marsh Arabs”, descendants of the ancient Sumerians who called the river “Buranuna” according to cuneiform texts discovered in Shuruppak and Nippur and dated to the 3^rd millennium BCE. It was also called “Purattu” in ancient Akkadian from where the Elamite name “U-ip-ra-tu-tish” derives, and “P’rat” in Syriac, “Frat” in Hebrew, and “Fira” in Kurdish. Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia (the "Land between the Rivers").

The early occupation of the Euphrates basin was limited to its upper reaches. Acheulean stone artifacts have been found in the Sajur basin and in the El Kowm oasis in the central Syrian steppe; the latter together with remains of Homo erectus, were dated to 450,000 years ago. During the Jemdet Nasr (3600–3100 BCE) and Early Dynastic periods (3100–2350 BCE), southern Mesopotamia experienced a growth in the number and size of settlements. These settlements, including Sumero-Akkadian sites like Sippar, Uruk, Adab and Kish, were organized in competing city-states. Many of these cities were located along canals of the Euphrates and the Tigris that have since dried up, but can still be identified from remote sensing imagery. A similar development took place in Upper Mesopotamia, Subartu and Assyria, although only from the mid 3rd millennium and on a smaller scale than in Lower Mesopotamia. Sites like Ebla, Mari and Tell Leilan grew to prominence for the first time during this period.

During the period of the Akkadian (2335–2154 BCE) and Ur III Empires, large parts of the Euphrates basin were for the first time united under a single ruler which controlled – either directly or indirectly through vassals – large parts of modern-day Iraq and northeastern Syria. Following their collapse, the Old Assyrian Empire (1975–1750 BCE) and Mari asserted their power over northeast Syria and northern Mesopotamia, while southern Mesopotamia was controlled by city-states like Isin, Kish and Larsa before their territories were absorbed by the newly emerged state of Babylonia under Hammurabi in the early to mid 18th century BCE.

In the latter half of the 2nd millennium BCE, the Euphrates basin was divided between Kassite Babylon in the south and Mitanni, Assyria and the Hittite Empire in the north, with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BCE) eventually eclipsing the others. Following the end of this empire, struggles broke out between it and Babylonia over control of the Euphrates basin in Mesopotamia. The Neo-Assyrian Empire (935–605 BCE) eventually emerged victorious and also succeeded in gaining control of the northern Euphrates basin in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE.

In the following centuries, control of the wider Euphrates basin shifted from the Neo-Assyrian Empire (which collapsed between 612 and 599 BCE) to the short lived Median Empire (612–546 BC) and equally brief Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BCE). Under King Nebuchadnezzar, the city of Babylon, capital of the Empire, became a marvel of the ancient world. Its walls and hanging gardens were considered one of the seven wonders of the world.

After the end of that empire, the Achaemenid Empire (539-333 BCE) took its place only to be overrun by Alexander the Great, who defeated its last Achaemenid king Darius III and died in Babylon in 323 BCE.

During this period, the river served as a border between Greater Armenia (331 BC–428 AD) and Lesser Armenia (the latter became a Roman province in the 1st century BCE). From 312-150 BCE, the region came under the control of the Seleucid Empire, the Parthian Empire (150–226 AD) (during which several Neo-Assyrian states such as Adiabene came to rule certain regions of the Euphrates), and was fought over by the Roman Empire, its succeeding Byzantine and Sassanid Empires (226–638 AD), and the Arab Islamic Empire which conquered the area in the mid-7^th century.  

When the Assyrians and Armenians adopted Christianity in the first centuries CE, Assyrian and Armenian villages along the Euphrates grew and prospered and the town of Callinicum became the center of Christianity in the area. Bishop Damianus of Callinicum took part in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and in 458 was a signatory of the letter that the bishops of the province wrote to Emperor Leo I the Thracian after the death of Proterius of Alexandria. In the early 6th century, Callinicum became a center of Assyrian monasticism with Dayra d'Mār Zakkā, or the Saint Zacchaeus monastery, situated on Tall al-Bi'a, achieving a degree of renown. It is mentioned by various sources up to the 10th century. Under its Bishop Ioannes in the mid-6th century, a Notitia Episcopatuum listed the diocese as a suffragan of Edessa, the capital and metropolitan see of Osrhoene. The second-most important monastery in the city was the Bīzūnā monastery or Dairā d-Esţunā, the 'monastery of the column'.

In the year 639 or 640, Callinicum surrendered to the Muslim conqueror Iyad ibn Ghanm. At the surrender of the city, the Syriac Christian inhabitants concluded a treaty with Ibn Ghanm which allowed them freedom of worship in their existing churches but forbade the construction of new churches. The city retained an active Christian community well into the Middle Ages (Michael the Syrian records 20 Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) bishops from the 8th to the 12th centuries). In the 9th century, when Callinicum, now Raqqa, served as capital of the western half of the Abbasid Caliphate, Saint Zacchaeus Monastery, became the seat of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, one of several rivals for the apostolic succession of the Ancient patriarchal see. In the 12^th century, the town experienced a second revival under the rule of the Kurdish Ayyubid dynasty.

There was also a Christian monastery in Deir ez Zor called Monastery of the Hermits. Today, it is the Omari Mosque. During the early Arab period, Muslims had colonized Deir ez-Zor having come from Iraq and other countries, because of its good location. Eventually, the indigenous Christians were forced to leave and those who didn’t, were forced into Islam.

In the early 9^th century, the Byzantine city of Rumkale (today in Turkey) was occupied by various Byzantine and Armenian warlords and in the 12th century, it also became the seat of an Armenian bishop. In 1179, a synod took place in the town, which attempted a compromise between the Greeks and Armenians. From 1203 to 1293, it served as the residence of the Catholicos of the Armenian Church. In the 14th century, the town of Anah was the seat of the catholicos who served as primate over the Persian Christians.

After the earthquake in 1157, the town of Mayadin was granted by the Turkish Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din to Asad ad-Din Shirkuh, a Kurd and paternal uncle of future Ayyubid sultan, Saladin. Shirkuh relocated the town’s fortress about 2.5 miles southwest of the original site. The new settlement, known as "al-Rahba al-Jadida", remained the significant center of the Euphrates region through much of the Ayyubid–Mamluk era (12th–15th centuries). The ruins of the fortress can still be seen to this day.

After the destructive onslaughts of the Mongols on the Euphrates Valley centers in the 15^th century, a few families of Arabs and Kurds began to resettle in the area, especially in and around Callinicum and thus, the modern town of Raqqa was born. The Kurdish clans banded together and called themselves “al-Akrad”, the Kurds. The Kurds of the Mîlan tribe of the Nahid Al-Jilab region have been present in Raqqa since 1711 but most left and returned back to their original homes after only a short while. Some Kurdish families were displaced to the northern countryside of Raqqa as a result of forced taxation by the Arab 'Annazah tribe. At the same time, the diocese of Callinicum was nominally restored as the Latin Titular bishopric of Callinicum. The town became a center of Maronite Christianity and in 1729, the Italian-born Mathaeus de Robertis was appointed its first Maronite bishop.

During the 19^th century, there were many Christian communities of Assyrians, Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians, throughout the Euphrates Valley as well as many Kurdish communities. Since the 1840s, the Christians would suffer severe persecutions and massacres at the hands of their Muslim neighbors, mainly the Turks, but also by the Kurds who were promised glory if they were allied with the Turks, but in the end, were also persecuted and massacred. In 1895, the town of Birecik became one first sites of atrocities of Turks against Armenians during the Hamidian Massacres, the first in a series of massacres that would become the Armenian Genocide. By the beginning of World War I in 1914 the Ottoman Empire began systematic campaigns to kill and displace Armenians who were forced to undergo death marches in the desert which were designed to lead to the death of the deportees.

Deir Ez Zor was the last destination of the forced displacement and the scene of killings and slaughter by the Turkish gendarmerie. It was here that the Ottoman authorities planned to use the local Arab population for the final extermination. But their plans failed. The Arabs, under their mayor Haj Fadel Al-Aboud actually protected them instead. Therefore, it was actually the local Arabs who saved many Armenian lives that day and thus was established good relations between the two peoples.

When the war ended, researchers estimated the number of Armenian victims as between 1 million and 1.5 million plus another 300,000 Assyrian victims. After the war, Assyrians from Iran settled in the city of Habbaniya which soon became an Assyrian Christian center.

Deir ez Zor has since become a pilgrimage destination for hundreds of thousands of Armenians on April 24 each year, after being declared as such in 2002 by Catholicos Aram I. The city is also home to the Armenian Genocide Memorial Church which was officially built in 1991, and the Deir ez-Zor Museum which keeps thousands of antiquities collected from nearby archaeological sites in Northern Mesopotamia. Deir ez-Zor is also home to the third Armenian diplomatic mission in Syria; the Honorary Consulate of Armenia, opened on February 11, 2010.

The Euphrates receives most of its water in the form of rainfall and melting snow, resulting in peak volumes during the months April through May. Discharge in these two months accounts for 36 percent of the total annual discharge of the Euphrates, or even 60–70 percent according to one source, while low runoff occurs in summer and autumn. The discharge regime of the Euphrates has changed dramatically since the construction of the first dams by the Turkish and Arab occupation authorities in the 1970s. With the enthusiastic support of the United Nations, the dams have affected 382 villages, and almost 200,000 people have been resettled elsewhere. The largest number of people was displaced by the building of the Atatürk Dam, which alone affected 55,300 people. The flooding of Lake Assad led to the forced displacement of about 4,000 families, who were resettled in other parts of northern Syria as part of a now abandoned plan to create an "Arab belt" along the borders with Turkey and Iraq.

The inundation of large parts of the Euphrates valley has also led to the flooding of many archaeological sites and other places of cultural significance. Although concerted efforts have been made to record or save as much of the endangered cultural heritage as possible, many sites are probably lost forever. The flooding of Zeugma with its unique Roman mosaics by the reservoir of the Birecik Dam has generated much controversy in both the Turkish and international press. The construction of the Tabqa Dam in Syria led to a large international campaign coordinated by UNESCO to document the heritage that would disappear under the waters of Lake Assad. Archaeologists from numerous countries excavated sites ranging in date from the Natufian to the Abbasid period, and two minarets, but not a single Christian or pre-Christian structure, were dismantled and rebuilt outside the flood zone. Important sites that have been flooded or affected by the rising waters of Lake Assad include Mureybet, Emar and Abu Hureyra. A similar international effort was made when the Tishrin Dam was constructed, which led, among others, to the flooding of the important Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Jerf el-Ahmar. An archaeological survey and rescue excavations were also carried out in the area flooded by Lake Qadisiya in Iraq. Parts of the flooded area have recently become accessible again due to the drying up of the lake, resulting not only in new possibilities for archaeologists to do more research, but also providing opportunities for looting, which has been rampant elsewhere in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 invasion.