Alayunt or Alayurt (; ) is a

neighbourhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...

in the municipality and district of

Dargeçit Dargeçit (, , ) is a municipality and district of Mardin Province, Turkey. Its area is 519 km2, and its population is 27,147 (2022). The town is principally populated by Kurds of the Erebiyan tribe. It is located in the historic region of ...

Mardin Province Mardin Province (; ; ; ) is a province and metropolitan municipality in Turkey. Its area is 8,780 km2, and its population is 870,374 (2022). The largest city in the province is Kızıltepe, while the capital Mardin is the second largest ci ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The village is populated by

Kurds Kurds (), or the Kurdish people, are an Iranian peoples, Iranic ethnic group from West Asia. They are indigenous to Kurdistan, which is a geographic region spanning southeastern Turkey, northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, and northeastern Syri ...

of the Erebiyan tribe and had a population of 247 in 2021. It is located in the historic region of

Tur Abdin Tur Abdin (; ; ; or ) 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 Syria–Turkey border, border with Syria and famed since Late Antiquity for ...

. In the village, there are churches of Mar Saba and Mar Jirjis.

History

Arbaye (today called Alayunt) was historically inhabited by

Syriac Orthodox Christians The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox Christian denomination, denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The ch ...

. The Church of Mar Saba at Arbaye is believed to have been constructed in the eighth century. In the

Syriac Orthodox The Syriac Orthodox Church (), also informally known as the Jacobite Church, is an Oriental Orthodox denomination that originates from the Church of Antioch. The church currently has around 4-5 million followers. The church upholds the Mia ...

patriarchal register of dues of 1870, it was recorded that the village had 26 households, who paid 43 dues, and did not have a priest. In 1914, the village was inhabited by 250

Syriacs Syriac may refer to: * Suret, a Neo-Aramaic language * Syriac alphabet, a writing system primarily used to write the Syriac language ** Syriac (Unicode block) ** Syriac Supplement * Syriac Christianity, a branch of Eastern Christianity * Syriac lan ...

, according to the list presented to the

Paris Peace Conference Agreements and declarations resulting from meetings in Paris include: Listed by name Paris Accords may refer to: * Paris Accords, the agreements reached at the end of the London and Paris Conferences in 1954 concerning the post-war status of Germ ...

by the Assyro-Chaldean delegation. Amidst the

Sayfo The Sayfo (, ), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass murder and deportation of Assyrian people, Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan (Iran), Azerbaijan province by Ottoman Army ...

, Kurds led by Ali Musa of Dayvan murdered most of the Syriacs and destroyed the Church of Mar Saba. The Church of Mar Jirjis was rebuilt in the 1940s. The village had a population of 295 in 1960. There were 215 Kurdish-speaking Christians in 32 families at Arbaye in 1966. By 1987, there were no remaining Syriacs.

Demography

The following is a list of the number of Syriac families that have inhabited Arbaye per year stated. Unless otherwise stated, all figures are from the list provided in ''The Syrian Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Period and Beyond: Crisis then Revival'', as noted in the bibliography below. *1915: 30 *1966: 32 *1978: 18 *1979: 13 *1987: 0

References

Notes Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alayunt, Dargecit Neighbourhoods in Dargeçit District Kurdish settlements in Mardin Province Historic Assyrian communities in Mardin Province Tur Abdin Places of the Sayfo