The Khabur River is the largest perennial tributary to the Euphrates in Syria . Although the Khabur originates in Turkey , the karstic springs around Ras al-Ayn are the river's main source of water. Several important wadis join the Khabur north of Al-Hasakah , together creating what is known as the Khabur Triangle, or Upper Khabur area. From north to south, annual rainfall in the Khabur basin decreases from over 400 mm to less than 200 mm. This has made the river a vital water source for agriculture throughout history. The Khabur joins the Euphrates near the town of Busayrah .
43-604: Khabur is the name of two river tributaries: Khabur (Euphrates) Khabur (Tigris) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about distinct geographical locations with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Khabur_River&oldid=775721871 " Category : Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
86-469: A few generations, but did not become widespread for more than a millennium (see PPNB ). Weaving and pottery followed about two thousand years later. From Al-Jazirah the idea of farming along with the domesticated seeds spread first to the rest of the Levant and then to North-Africa, Europe and eastwards through Mesopotamia all the way to present-day Pakistan (see Mehrgarh ). Earlier archeologists worked on
129-647: A prolific manufacturing (food processing and cloth weaving) system. The region's position at the border of the Sasanian and Byzantine territories also made it an important commercial center, and advantage that the region continued to enjoy, even after the Muslim conquest of Persia and Byzantine possessions in the Levant . Al-Jazira included the Roman/Byzantine provinces of Osroene and Mesopotamia , as well as
172-458: A similar fate after its Christian population left when it was annexed to Turkey. The Christian population of the city crossed the border into Syria and settled in Qamishli , which was separated by the railway (new border) from Nusaybin. Nusaybin became Kurdish and Qamishli became an Assyrian city. Things soon changed, however, with the immigration of Kurds beginning in 1926 following the failure of
215-460: Is also possible that there were cities with the same names closer to Ebla. In many ways, the diplomatic interactions in the wider Ancient Near East during this period resemble those from the second millennium BC, which are particularly well known from the Amarna letters . Upper Mesopotamia is also the heartland of ancient Assyria , founded circa the 25th century BC. From the late 24th Century BC it
258-484: Is also the center for Syria's oil production. Al-Jazira, Mesopotamia Upper Mesopotamia constitutes the uplands and great outwash plain of northwestern Iraq , northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey , in the northern Middle East . Since the early Muslim conquests of the mid-7th century, the region has been known by the traditional Arabic name of al-Jazira ( Arabic : الجزيرة "the island", also transliterated Djazirah , Djezirah , Jazirah ) and
301-601: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Khabur (Euphrates) The course of the Khabur can be divided into two distinct zones: the Upper Khabur area or Khabur Triangle north of Al-Hasakah, and the Middle and Lower Khabur between Al-Hasakah and Busayrah. The tributaries to the Khabur are listed from east to west. Most of these wadis only carry water for part of
344-597: Is essentially contiguous with the Syrian al-Hasakah Governorate and is described as "Syria's breadbasket ". The eastern, Iraqi part, includes and extends slightly beyond the Iraqi Nineveh Governorate . In the north it includes the Turkish provinces of Şanlıurfa , Mardin , and parts of Diyarbakır Province . The name al-Jazira has been used since the 7th century AD by Islamic sources to refer to
387-660: The Euphrates at Circesium (Kerkesiah). Procopius speaks of it as a river of importance, and Ammianus states that Julian the Apostate crossed it "per navalem Aborae pontem". Strabo describes it as near the town of Anthemusias . The river is fed by several smaller streams, the names of which are mentioned by the later classical writers. These are, the Scirtus (Procop. de Aedif. 2.7), the Cordes (Procop. de Aedif. 2.2), and
430-822: The First Crusade , the western part came into Crusader hands as the County of Edessa , while the rest was ruled by a succession of semi-independent Turkish rulers until taken over by the Zengids , and eventually the Kurdish Ayyubids . Thereafter the northern and eastern portions were ruled initially by the Artuqids , laterly by the Kara Koyunlu and Akkoyunlu Turcomans and finally by the Safavids ; while
473-608: The Mygdonius ( Julian . Or. i.). Ptolemy (5.18.6) mentions a town called Chabora (Χαβώρα), on the Euphrates, which he places near Nicephorion , and which probably derives its name from the river, and Theophylact Simocatta mentions Ἀβορέων φρούριον, which is, as certainly, the same place. Since the 1930s, numerous archaeological excavations and surveys have been carried out in the Khabur Valley, indicating that
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#1732764920287516-597: The Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. The Uruk period ( c. 4000 to 3100 BC) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in Mesopotamia, including a section of the upper region. The political history of Upper Mesopotamia and Syria during the Early Dynastic Period is well known from the royal archives recovered at Ebla . Ebla, Mari , and Nagar were
559-590: The Syriac variant Gāzartā or Gozarto ( ܓܙܪܬܐ ). The Euphrates and Tigris rivers transform Mesopotamia into almost an island, as they are joined together at the Shatt al-Arab in the Basra Governorate of Iraq, and their sources in eastern Turkey are in close proximity. The region extends south from the mountains of Anatolia , east from the hills on the left bank of the Euphrates river, west from
602-738: The Amuda massacre of August 9, 1937. This massacre, carried out by the Kurd Saeed Agha, emptied the city of its Assyrian population. In 1941, the Assyrian community of al-Malikiyah were subjected to a vicious assault. Even though the assault failed, the Assyrians were terrorized and left in large numbers, and the immigration of Kurds from Turkey to the area have converted al-Malikiya, al-Darbasiyah and Amuda to completely Kurdish cities. The historically-important Christian city of Nusaybin had
645-555: The Chebar or Kebar, the location of Tel Abib and setting of several important scenes of the Book of Ezekiel . However, recent scholarship identifies the Chebar as the ka-ba-ru waterway mentioned among the 5th century BCE Murushu archives from Nippur , close to Nippur and the Shatt el-Nil, a silted up canal toward the east of Babylon. The Khabur River Project, begun in the 1960s, involved
688-802: The Hamdanid power put the region back under the nominal rule of the Caliphs of Baghdad, while actual control was in the hands of the Buyid brothers who had conquered Baghdad itself. At the turn of the 11th century, the area came under the rule of a number of local dynasties, the Numayrids , the Mirdasids , and the Uqaylids , who persisted until the conquest by the Seljuq Empire . With the arrival of
731-534: The Parthian/Persian provinces of Asōristān, Arbayestan , Nisibis , and Mosul . The conquest of the region took place under the early Caliphate that left the general administration of the region intact, with the exception of levying the jizya tax on the population. At the time of Mu‘awiyah , governor of Syria and the later of the Umayyad Caliphate ), the administration of al-Jazira
774-641: The Younger on his ill-fated expedition against the Persians as told by Xenophon , was located at the confluence of the Khabur River, known by them as the 'Mascas', and the Euphrates according to Robin Waterfield . Other authors have been circumspect upon the precise location of Corsote due to the changing names and courses of the rivers since that time. The Khabur river was sometimes identified with
817-513: The absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere. As far as current knowledge goes, there were no firmly established farming societies during that time period. Farming appeared to be in an experimental stage, serving primarily as a supplement to ongoing hunting and gathering practices. This raises questions about whether (semi)sedentary hunter-gatherer communities were sufficiently affluent and numerous to coordinate and carry out large-scale communal construction projects. Alternatively, it suggests
860-579: The ancient Mesopotamians . Demographics saw huge shifts during the first half of the 20th century. Thousands of Assyrian refugees entered into Syrian Jazira province from Turkey following the Assyrian genocide of World War I. Additionally, in 1933 a further 24,000 Assyrian Christians fled into the area, following the Simele massacre in the Mosul region of northern Iraq. Violence against Christians changed
903-612: The assumption that agriculture was a prerequisite to a sedentary lifestyle, but excavations in Israel and Lebanon surprised science by showing that a sedentary lifestyle actually came before agriculture (see the Natufian culture ). Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the spectacular finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC—over five thousand years older than Stonehenge —and thus
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#1732764920287946-496: The coastal ranges. In pre- Abbasid times the western and eastern boundaries seem to have fluctuated, sometimes including what is now northern Syria to the west and Adiabene in the east. Al-Jazira is characterised as an outwash or alluvial plain , quite distinct from the Syrian Desert and lower-lying central Mesopotamia ; however, the area includes eroded hills and incised streams. The region has several parts to it. In
989-631: The construction of a series of dams and canals . Three dams were built in the Khabur Basin as part of a large irrigation scheme that also includes the Tabqa Dam on the Euphrates. The section of the Khabur River within Tell Tamer Subdistrict are home to a self-governing Assyrian enclave. Two dams, Hasakah West and Hasakah East, have been constructed on tributaries to the Khabur between Ra's al-'Ayn and Al-Hasakah. The capacity of
1032-826: The demographics of Upper Mesopotamia. Some Kurdish and Persian tribes cooperated with Ottoman authorities in the Armenian and Assyrian genocides . In the middle of the 19th century, and due to the wars between the Kurdish Buhti amirs and the Turks, many Christians in the Siirt area were killed by the Kurds. In Syria's Jazira province, the French official reports show the existence of 45 Kurdish villages in Jazira prior to 1927. After
1075-646: The direct rule of the government in Baghdad. At this time, al-Jazira was one of the highest tax-yielding provinces of the Abbasid Empire. During the early history of Islam, al-Jazira became a center for the Kharijite movement and had to be constantly subdued by various caliphs. In the 920s, the local Hamdanid dynasty established an autonomous state with two branches in al-Jazira (under Nasir al-Dawla ) and Northern Syria (under Sayf al-Dawla ). The demise of
1118-576: The dominant states for this period. The earliest texts indicate that Ebla paid tribute to Mari but was able to reduce it after it won a military victory. Cities like Emar on the Upper Euphrates and Abarsal (location unknown) were vassals of Ebla. Ebla exchanged gifts with Nagar, and a royal marriage was concluded between the daughter of a king of Ebla and the son of his counterpart at Nagar. The archives also contain letters from more distant kingdoms, such as Kish and possibly Hamazi, although it
1161-528: The early conquering Arab armies. Various conquerors tried, in vain, to bind various cities of the former Sassanian provinces, as well as the newly conquered Byzantine provinces of Mesopotamia, into a coherent unit under their own rule. The control of the region, however, was essential to any power centered in Baghdad . Consequently, the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate brought al-Jazira under
1204-511: The end of 1930. Under the French Mandate of Syria, newly-arriving Kurds were granted citizenship by French Mandate authorities and enjoyed considerable rights as the French Mandate authority encouraged minority autonomy as part of a divide and rule strategy and recruited heavily from the Kurds and other minority groups, such as Alawite and Druze , for its local armed forces. Assyrian Christians began to emigrate from Syria after
1247-619: The failed Kurdish rebellions in Kemalist Turkey in the mid 1920s, there was a large influx of Kurds to Syrian Jazira province , that fell under the occupation of French Mandate authorities to escape the subsequent Turkish onslaught. It is estimated that 25,000 Kurds fled at this time to northern Syria, under French Mandate authorities , who encouraged their immigration, and granted them Syrian citizenship. A new wave of refugees arrived in 1929. The mandatory authorities continued to encourage Kurdish immigration into Syria, and by 1939,
1290-577: The mountains on the right bank of the Tigris river and includes the Sinjar plain. It extends down the Tigris to Samarra and down the Euphrates to Hit, Iraq . The Khabur runs for over 400 km (250 mi) across the plain, from Turkey in the north, feeding into the Euphrates. The major settlements are Mosul , Deir ez-Zor , Raqqa , al-Hasakah , Diyarbakır and Qamishli . The western, Syrian part,
1333-657: The northern section of Mesopotamia, while the Lower Mesopotamia, also known as Sawād , is the southern part of Mesopotamia. The name means "island", and at one time referred to the land between the two rivers, which in Syriac is Beth Nahrain (ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ) . Historically, the name could be restricted to the Sinjar plain coming down from the Sinjar Mountains , or expanded to embrace the entire plateau east of
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1376-497: The northwest is one of the largest salt flats in the world, Sabkhat al-Jabbul . Further south, extending from Mosul to near Basra is a sandy desert not unlike the Empty Quarter . In the late 20th and early 21st centuries the region has been plagued by drought. Al-Jazirah is extremely important archeologically. This is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus
1419-498: The possibility that well-established agricultural societies may have existed much earlier than previously recognized. Notably, Göbekli Tepe is located just 32 km from Karaca Dağ. The questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East. Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far. Sumerians are theorized to have evolved from
1462-487: The region has been occupied since the Lower Palaeolithic period. Important sites that have been excavated include Tell Halaf , Tell Brak , Tell Leilan , Tell Mashnaqa , Tell Mozan and Tell Barri . The region has given its name to a distinctive painted ware found in northern Mesopotamia and Syria in the early 2nd millennium BCE, called Khabur ware . The region of the Khabur River is also associated with
1505-454: The reservoir of Hasakah West is 0.09 km , and is also the southeastern end of the Assyrian enclave. The capacity of Hasakah East is 0.2 km . A third dam, Hassakeh South, was constructed on the Khabur 25 km south of Al-Hasakah. The reservoir of this dam has a capacity of 0.7 km . The Khabur Valley, which now has about four million acres (16,000 km ) of farmland, is Syria's main wheat -cultivation area. The northeastern part
1548-834: The rise of the Kingdom of the Mitanni that flourished c. 1500–1300 BC. The Khabur River is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: " Tiglath-Pileser ... took the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh into exile. He took them to Halah, Habor (Khabur), Hara and the River Gozan, where they are to this day". The identification of the Khabur with the Habor is not contested. The ancient city of Corsote , visited by Cyrus
1591-614: The starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain Karaca Dağ in southern Turkey, where the closest relative to modern wheat still grows wild. At several sites (e.g. Hallan Çemi, Abu Hureyra , Mureybet ) we can see a continuous occupation from a hunter-gathering lifestyle (based on hunting, and gathering and grinding of wild grains) to an economy based mainly on growing (still wild varieties of) wheat, barley and legumes from around 9000 BC (see PPNA ). Domestication of goats and sheep followed within
1634-459: The villages numbered between 700 and 800. Sperl's estimation also contradicts the estimates of the French geographers Fevret and Gibert, who estimated that in 1953 out of the total 146,000 inhabitants of Jazira, agriculturalist Kurds made up 60,000 (41%), nomad Arabs 50,000 (34%), and a quarter of the population were Christians. Another account by Sir John Hope Simpson estimated the number of Kurds in Jazira province at 20,000 out of 100,000 people at
1677-667: The western parts came under the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt until the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–17) , when it was taken by the Ottoman Empire . Remainder of this region was in Ottoman hands after Battle of Chaldiran and Ottoman–Safavid War (1532–1555) . Although the region is ethnically diverse, it is considered to be the traditional Assyrian homeland in addition to Aramaic-speaking Christian descendants of
1720-835: The year. The river was well noted by ancient writers, with various names used by various writers: Ptolemy and Pliny the Elder called it the Chaboras ( Ancient Greek : Χαβώρας ), Procopius called it the Chabura , Strabo , Zosimus , and Ammianus Marcellinus called it the Aborrhas (Ἀβόρρας), and Isidore of Charax called it the Aburas (Ἀβούρας). It was described as a large river of Mesopotamia which rose in Mons Masius , about 40 miles (64 km) from Nisibis , and flowed into
1763-399: Was included in the administration of Syria. During the early Umayyad Caliphate, the administration of al-Jazira was often shared with that of Arminiya , a vast province encompassing most of Transcaucasia , Eastern Anatolia and what is now Iranian Azerbaijan . The prosperity of the region and its high agricultural and manufacturing output made it an object of contest between the leaders of
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1806-426: Was part of the Akkadian Empire , then is separated into three eras: Old Assyrian Empire (circa 2050–1750 BC), Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC), Median Empire (678-549 BC) and Neo Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC). The region fell to the Assyrians' southern brethren, the Babylonians in 605 BC, and from 539 BC it became part of the Achaemenid Empire ; Achaemenid Assyria was known as Athura . From 323 BC, it
1849-498: Was ruled by the Greek Seleucid Empire , the Greeks corrupting the name to Syria , which they also applied to Aram . It then fell to the Parthians and Romans and was renamed Assyria by both. The area was still known as Asōristān under the Sasanian Empire until the Muslim conquest of Persia , when it was renamed al-Jazira. Since pre-Arab and pre-Islamic times, al-Jazira has been an economically prosperous region with various agricultural (fruit and cereal) products, as well as
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