Views walking around the center of Duhok 08

Duhok ( ku, دهۆک, translit=Dihok; ar, دهوك, Dahūk; syr, ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ, Beth Nohadra) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It's the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

city of Duhok Governorate.

History

The city's origin dates back to the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

, and it became part of the Assyrian Empire, then the Babylonian Empire before it fell into the hands of

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

after the

Fall of Babylon The Fall of Babylon denotes the end of the Neo-Babylonian Empire after it was conquered by the Achaemenid Empire in 539 BCE. Nabonidus (Nabû-na'id, 556–539 BCE), son of the Assyrian priestess Adda-Guppi, came to the throne in 556 BCE, afte ...

, and subsequently fell into the hands of Alexander the Great and the Romans. It became an important center of

Syriac Christianity Syriac Christianity ( syr, ܡܫܝܚܝܘܬܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܬܐ / ''Mšiḥoyuṯo Suryoyto'' or ''Mšiḥāyūṯā Suryāytā'') is a distinctive branch of Eastern Christianity, whose formative theological writings and traditional liturgies are expr ...

where it was known as "ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ" ''Beth Nohdry'', before fading out after the conquests of Mesopotamia by Tamerlane. According to Evliya Çelebi, the city was initially called ''Dohuk-e Dasinya,'' named after the militant Dasini tribe who were believers of Yazidism. The Yazidi population is still relatively significant, but has decreased due to

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...

. This made it possible for Muslims, Christians and Jews to settle in the town. The city became prominent in 1236, when Hasan Beg Saifadin joined the Bahdinan Principality. In 1842, the principality was dissolved by the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

and the region was administered from Mosul. In 1820, Claudius Rich described Dohuk as a small town of 300 houses and the principal settlement of the Kurdish Doski tribe, who also lived in eighty villages. In 1851, Henry Aaron Stern pointed at the heterogenous composition in the city and mentioned a Jewish presence. He also mentioned that the mayor was a

Chaldean Catholic , native_name_lang = syc , image = Assyrian Church.png , imagewidth = 200px , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows Baghdad, Iraq , abbreviation = , type ...

. In 1859, the city had two minyans according to Rabbi Yechiel. In 1929, the city had a population of 3,500 people, of which a majority was Kurdish. Out of the 550 families, 65 were Christian and 30 were Jewish. The city also housed Tyari and

Chaldean Chaldean (also Chaldaean or Chaldee) may refer to: Language * an old name for the Aramaic language, particularly Biblical Aramaic * Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, a modern Aramaic language * Chaldean script, a variant of the Syriac alphabet Places * Chal ...

refugees from Turkey.

Modern times

The University of Duhok was founded on 31 October 1992. The city is home to diverse ethnic groups including Iraqi Kurds who are the majority, while other minorities include

Assyrians Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyrian ...

, Yazidis and Arabs. The city also hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are Yazidis and Assyrian Christians after the Islamic State expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two more months of fighting, in addition to the

Sinjar massacre The Sinjar massacre () marked the beginning of the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL, the killing and abduction of thousands of Yazidi men, women and children. It took place in August 2014 in Sinjar city and Sinjar District in Iraq's Nineveh Governora ...

in which 5,000 Yezidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Iraq), as of June 2019, Duhok Governorate hosted 326,106 IDPs across 169 different locations.

Archaeology

In 2020, researches discovered in the Balyuz hills, ten kilometers west of Duhok City, an ancient tablet with

Greek inscription The Greek-language inscriptions and epigraphy are a major source for understanding of the society, language and history of ancient Greece and other Greek-speaking or Greek-controlled areas. Greek inscriptions may occur on stone slabs, pottery ost ...

which dates back to 165 B.C. The inscriptions refers to Demetrius, the ruler of the region during that time. Seven kilometers southwest of Duhok,

Halamata Cave Halamata Cave is an archaeological site near Duhok in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The caves contain the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai reliefs. The cave is located seven kilometres south-west of Dohuk, above the village of Gever ...

is an archaeological site containing the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai Reliefs, associated with the northern canal system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704-681 BCE) to carry water to his capital city of

Nineveh Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ban ...

Climate

According to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok, like most of Upper Mesopotamia, has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (''Csa'') featuring very hot, virtually rainless summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring. The city can get around two or three snowy days per year, with heavier falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually rainless, with rain returning in late autumn.

References

External links