For the record, I'm neither an academic nor a scholar, and admittedly, I've never been to many of the places posted here. So if someone should find a mistake, or believe I omitted something, please feel free to email me and I'll correct it.

I can be contacted at dms2_@hotmail.com.

Monday, January 25, 2021

NEHARDEA, ANBAR, AND THE SURROUNDING AREA

banks of the Euphrates near Nehardea, courtesy,
docs.google.com
Nehardea was an ancient city in historic Assyria, today, Arab-occupied “Iraq”. Today, archaeologists and historians have identified the town of Anbar as being adjacent or identical to Nehardea, lying a short distance from the present-day town of Fallujah, formerly the Babylonian Jewish center of Pumbedita.

Nehardea was originally known as Misiche and dates back to at least 3000 BCE as was evidenced by the archaeological research of the local artificial mound Tel Aswad. As a major crossing point of the Euphrates, at or near the junction with the Royal Canal, and occupying the northernmost point of the complex irrigation network of the Sawad, the town was of considerable strategic significance. Nevertheless, it was conquered several times in ancient history - by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Parthians. Centuries, later, it became one of the earliest centers of Babylonian Judaism and headed by an exilarch. As the seat of the exilarch, the local Jewish community traditionally has traced its origin back to King Jehoiachin of Judah who was brought over during the Babylonian Captivity in 586 BCE. According to Sherira Gaon, 10th century gaon of the Talmudic Academy in Pumbeditha, Jehoiachin and his coexilarchs built a synagogue at Nehardea, for the foundation of which they used earth and stones which they had brought from Jerusalem, in accordance with the words of Psalms 102:15.  Centuries later, in the early 1st century CE, two Jewish brothers Anilai and Asinai, natives of Nehardea, founded a semi-autonomous state on the Euphrates, under the Parthian government. The site of Nehardea played a role in the Roman–Persian Wars of the 3rd–4th centuries. As the western gate to central Mesopotamia, it was fortified by the Sasanian ruler Shapur I (r. 241–272) to shield his capital, Ctesiphon, from the Roman Empire. After his decisive defeat of the Roman emperor Gordian III at the Battle of Misiche in 244, Shapur renamed the town Firuz Shapur, "victorious Shapur" and maintained an intense interaction with the Greeks and Romans. The granaries in the city’s citadel were internationally well-known. The city was fortified by a double wall, possibly through the use of Roman prison labor. It was later sacked and burned after an agreement with its garrison in March 363 by the Roman emperor Julian during his invasion of the Sasanian Empire. It was rebuilt by Shapur II. By 420, the garrison in Nehardea/Firuz Shapur was manned by Persians. But as the indigenous Assyrian/Syriac Christian community was the dominant, it was attested as a bishopric, both for the Church of the East and for the Syriac Orthodox Church. The names of fourteen of its bishops of the period 486–1074 are known: Narses fl. 540, Simeon fl. 553, Salibazachi fl. 714, Paul fl. 740, Theodosius, John fl. 885, Enos 890, Elias fl. 906-920, Jaballaha fl. 960, Sebarjesus, Elias II fl. 987, Mundar fl. 1028, Maris fl. 1075, and Zacharias fl. 1111.

The city fell to the Arab Rashidun Caliphate who occupied and colonized the whole of Mesopotamia in July 633, after a fiercely fought siege. The Arabs then renamed the site, “Anbar”, a Persian word for granary in reference to the famous granaries in the citadel. About a century later, beginning in 752, Anbar briefly served as capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, maintaining that status for ten years until the founding of the Arab settlement of Baghdad in 762. By the 12th century, and according to medieval Arabic sources, many of the inhabitants of the town migrated north to found the city of Hdatta south of Mosul.

Al-Khaldiya in the area of Nehardea was founded in 1969 as a settlement for Assyrian Christian families who were displaced as a result of the closure of RAF Habbaniya, though it is now predominantly populated by Sunni Arabs.

Anbar is listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see of the Chaldean Catholic Church, and  established as titular bishopric in 1980. It has had the following incumbents: Titular Archbishop Stéphane Katchou (1980– 1981), as Coadjutor Archeparch of Bassorah of the Chaldeans; Titular Bishop Ibrahim Namo Ibrahim (1982– 1985), as Apostolic Exarch in the United States; Titular Bishop Shlemon Warduni (since 2001), Curial Bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

The area is now entirely deserted, occupied only by mounds of ruins, whose great numbers indicates the city's former importance.

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