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| banks of the Euphrates near Nehardea, courtesy, docs.google.com |
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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