Tur Abdin
Tur Abdin (Arabic: طور عبدين; Kurdish: Tor;[1] Latin: Turabdium; Syriac: ܛܽܘܪ ܥܰܒ݂ܕܺܝܢ or ܛܘܼܪ ܥܲܒ݂ܕܝܼܢ, Ṭūr ʿAḇdīn[2]) is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria and famed since Late Antiquity for its Christian monasteries on the border of the Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire.
The area is a low plateau in the Anti-Taurus Mountains stretching from Mardin in the west to the Tigris in the east and delimited by the Mesopotamian plains to the south.
The Assyrian king Adad-nirari II, who came to throne in the late 10th century BCE, removed the Arameans from political power in the Kashiari mountains (Tur Abdin).
[8] In the 9th century BCE the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II described crossing the plateau of Tur Abdin (which he calls "Kashyari") on his way to attack the region of Nairi, more than once.
[12] Most ancient monuments in Tur Abdin are Christian, but as attested by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, the area has a pre-Christian history.
the prophet Ezekiel mentions the famed wine of Izlo, on the southern edge of the plateau of Tur Abdin, in his prophecy against Tyre.
According to tradition, Shem'un had a dream in which an Angel commanded him to build a House of Prayer in a location marked with three large stone blocks.
[3] After the failure of Julian's Persian War in 363, the Tur Abdin became part of the Sasanian Empire along with the remaining territory of the five Transtigritine provinces and the nearby strongholds of Nisibis and Bezabde.
After a period of persecution by the Chalcedonian state church of the Roman Empire and during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, the monasteries of the Tur Abdin enjoyed a particular prosperity under Arab rule in the latter 7th century.
They were then "severely persecuted as heretical Monophysites by the Byzantine Emperors", according to William Dalrymple, which led the Syrian Orthodox Church hierarchy to retreat to the "inaccessible shelter of the barren hills of the Tur Abdin.
"[18] Gaunt has estimated the Assyrian population at between 500,000 and 600,000 just before the outbreak of World War I, significantly higher than reported on Ottoman census figures.
Midyat, in Diyarbekir vilayet, was the only town in the Ottoman Empire with an Assyrian majority, although divided between Syriac Orthodox, Chaldeans, and Protestants.
[19] Syriac Orthodox Christians were concentrated in the hilly rural areas around Midyat, known as Tur Abdin, where they populated almost 100 villages and worked in agriculture or crafts.
[31] The most important Syriac Orthodox centre in Tur Abdin is the monastery of Dayro d-Mor Hananyo, 6 km south east of Mardin, in the west of the region.
The Dayro d-Mor Hananyo is part of the UNESCO world cultural heritage and was visited by numerous celebrities including the UK's King Charles III, when Prince of Wales.
