The Khabur River is the largest perennial tributary to the
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
in
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. Although the Khabur originates in
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
, the
karstic
Karst is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves. It has also been documented for more weathering-resistant ro ...
springs around
Ras al-Ayn
Ras al-Ayn ( ar, رَأْس ٱلْعَيْن, Raʾs al-ʿAyn, ku, سەرێ کانیێ, Serê Kaniyê, syc, ܪܝܫ ܥܝܢܐ, Rēš Aynā), also spelled Ras al-Ain, is a city in al-Hasakah Governorate in northeastern Syria, on the Syria–Turkey ...
are the river's main source of water. Several important
wadi
Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...
s 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, making the river a vital water source for agriculture throughout history. The Khabur joins the Euphrates near the town of
Busayrah
Al-Busayrah ( ar, الْبُصَيْرَة, al-Buṣayrah) is a town in eastern Syria, administratively part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. The town is located, at the confluence of the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers, southeast of Deir ez-Zor. Nea ...
.
Geography
The course of the Khabur can be divided in 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.
Tributaries
The tributaries to the Khabur are listed from east to west. Most of these
wadi
Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...
s only carry water for part of the year.
*
Wadi Radd The Wadi Radd is a tributary of the Khabur (Euphrates), Khabur River in Syria. Halaba lies near its bank.
References
Wadis of Syria, Radd
Tributaries of the Khabur (Euphrates)
{{Syria-river-stub ...
*
Wadi Khnezir
*
Wadi Jarrah
*
Jaghjagh River
The Jaghjagh River ( ar, نهر جقجق ''Nahr Jaqjaq'', ''Nahr al-Jaghjagh'', or ''Nahr al-Hirmas'', tr, Çağ-çağ Deresi, syr, ܢܗܕܐ ܕܔܩܔܩ ''Nahro dJaqjaq'', ku, Çemê Nisêbînê or Cexcex) is a tributary of the Khabur River in ...
*
Wadi Khanzir
*
Wadi Avedji
History
The river was well noted by ancient writers, with various names used by various writers:
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
and
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
called it the ''Chaboras'' ( grc, Χαβώρας),
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, '' The Geography, 5.18.3; Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
, Natural History, 30.3. Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gener ...
called it the ''Chabura'',
Procopius
Procopius of Caesarea ( grc-gre, Προκόπιος ὁ Καισαρεύς ''Prokópios ho Kaisareús''; la, Procopius Caesariensis; – after 565) was a prominent late antique Greek scholar from Caesarea Maritima. Accompanying the Roman gener ...
, ''B.P.'', 2.5. Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
,
Zosimus Zosimus, Zosimos, Zosima or Zosimas may refer to:
People
*
* Rufus and Zosimus (died 107), Christian saints
* Zosimus (martyr) (died 110), Christian martyr who was executed in Umbria, Italy
* Zosimos of Panopolis, also known as ''Zosimus Alchem ...
, and
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally Anglicisation, anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Ancient history, antiquity (preceding Procopius). His w ...
called it the ''Aborrhas'' (Ἀβόρρας),
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
, xvi; Zosimus Zosimus, Zosimos, Zosima or Zosimas may refer to:
People
*
* Rufus and Zosimus (died 107), Christian saints
* Zosimus (martyr) (died 110), Christian martyr who was executed in Umbria, Italy
* Zosimos of Panopolis, also known as ''Zosimus Alchem ...
, ''Historia Nova'', 3.13; Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus (occasionally Anglicisation, anglicised as Ammian) (born , died 400) was a Roman soldier and historian who wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Ancient history, antiquity (preceding Procopius). His w ...
, ''Rerum Gestarum'', 14.3, 23.5. and
Isidore of Charax
Isidore of Charax (; grc, Ἰσίδωρος ὁ Χαρακηνός, ''Isídōros o Charakēnós''; la, Isidorus Characenus) was a Greco-Roman geographer of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, a citizen of the Parthian Empire, about whom noth ...
called it the ''Aburas'' (Ἀβούρας).
Isidore of Charax
Isidore of Charax (; grc, Ἰσίδωρος ὁ Χαρακηνός, ''Isídōros o Charakēnós''; la, Isidorus Characenus) was a Greco-Roman geographer of the 1st century BC and 1st century AD, a citizen of the Parthian Empire, about whom noth ...
It was described as a large river of Mesopotamia which rose in
Mons Masius
The Taurus Mountains ( Turkish: ''Toros Dağları'' or ''Toroslar'') are a mountain complex in southern Turkey, separating the Mediterranean coastal region from the central Anatolian Plateau. The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir ...
, about from
Nisibis
Nusaybin (; '; ar, نُصَيْبِيْن, translit=Nuṣaybīn; syr, ܢܨܝܒܝܢ, translit=Nṣībīn), historically known as Nisibis () or Nesbin, is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009 and is ...
, and flowed into the
Euphrates
The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...
at
Circesium (Kerkesiah). Procopius speaks of it as a river of importance, and Ammianus states that
Julian the Apostate
Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplato ...
crossed it "per navalem Aborae pontem". Strabo describes it as near the town of
Anthemusia.
The river is fed by several smaller streams, the names of which are mentioned in the later classical writers. These are, the
Scirtus
The Daysan River or Daisan River was the name of the river that flowed through Urfa, a tributary of the Khabur. Historically known as the Scirtus ( grc, Σκίρτος),Procopius, ''de Aed.'' 2.7 Procopius describes it as a river of Mesopotamia, a ...
(Procop. ''de Aedif.'' 2.7), the
Cordes (Procop. ''de Aedif.'' 2.2), and the
Mygdonius (
Julian. ''Or.'' i.).
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
(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
Theophylact Simocatta (Byzantine Greek: Θεοφύλακτος Σιμοκάτ(τ)ης ''Theophýlaktos Simokát(t)ēs''; la, Theophylactus Simocatta) was an early seventh-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine historiographer, arguably ranking as th ...
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 the region has been occupied since the
Lower Palaeolithic
The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...
period.
Important sites that have been excavated include
Tell Halaf
Tell Halaf ( ar, تل حلف) is an archaeological site in the Al Hasakah governorate of northeastern Syria, a few kilometers from the city of Ra's al-'Ayn near the Turkish border. The site, which dates to the 6th millennium BCE, was the firs ...
,
Tell Brak
Tell Brak (Nagar, Nawar) was an ancient city in Syria; its remains constitute a tell located in the Upper Khabur region, near the modern village of Tell Brak, 50 kilometers north-east of Al-Hasaka city, Al-Hasakah Governorate. The city's o ...
,
Tell Leilan
Tell Leilan is an archaeological site situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria. The site has been occupied since the 5th millennium BC. During the late third millennium, the site wa ...
,
Tell Mashnaqa
Tell Mashnaqa ( ar, تل مشنقة) is an archaeological site located on the Khabur River, a tributary to the Euphrates, about south of Al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria. The earliest occupation of the site dates to the Ubaid period (ca. 5200 ...
,
Tell Mozan
Urkesh or Urkish (Akkadian: 𒌨𒆧𒆠 UR.KIŠKI, 𒌨𒋙𒀭𒄲𒆠 UR.KEŠ3KI; modern Tell Mozan; ar, تل موزان) is a tell, or settlement mound, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern ...
and
Tell Barri
Tell Barri (ancient Kahat) is a tell, or archaeological settlement mound, in north-eastern Syria in the Al-Hasakah Governorate. Its ancient name was Kahat as proven by a threshold found on the south-western slope of the mound. Tell Barri is sit ...
. The region has given its name to a distinctive painted ware found in
northern Mesopotamia
Upper Mesopotamia is the name used for 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 ...
and Syria in the early 2nd millennium BCE, called
Khabur ware. The region of the Khabur River is also associated with the rise of the Kingdom of the
Mitanni
Mitanni (; Hittite cuneiform ; ''Mittani'' '), c. 1550–1260 BC, earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, c. 1600 BC; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat (''Hanikalbat'', ''Khanigalbat'', cuneiform ') in Assyrian records, or ''Naharin'' in ...
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 the Younger
Cyrus the Younger ( peo, 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 ''Kūruš''; grc-gre, Κῦρος ; died 401 BC) was an Achaemenid prince and general. He ruled as satrap of Lydia and Ionia from 408 to 401 BC. Son of Darius II and Parysatis, he died in 401 BC i ...
on his ill-fated expedition against the Persians as told by
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
, was located at the confluence of the Khabur River, known by them as the 'Mascas', and the Euphrates according to
Robin Waterfield
Robin Anthony Herschel Waterfield (born 1952) is a British classical scholar, translator, editor, and writer of children's fiction.
Career
Waterfield was born in 1952, and studied Classics at Manchester University, where he achieved a first clas ...
. 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 the Chebar or Kebar, the location of
Tel Abib __NOTOC__
Tel Abib ( he, תל אביב, ''Tel Aviv'', "the hill of Spring", from Akkadian ''Tel Abûbi'', "The Tel of the flood") is an unidentified tell ("hill city") on the Kebar Canal, near Nippur in what is now Iraq. Tel Abib is mentioned by ...
and setting of several important scenes of the
Book of Ezekiel
The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during t ...
. However, recent scholarship identifies the Chebar as the ''ka-ba-ru'' waterway mentioned among the 5th century BCE Murushu archives from
Nippur
Nippur (Sumerian language, Sumerian: ''Nibru'', often logogram, logographically recorded as , EN.LÍLKI, "Enlil City;"The Cambridge Ancient History: Prolegomena & Prehistory': Vol. 1, Part 1. Accessed 15 Dec 2010. Akkadian language, Akkadian: '' ...
, close to Nippur and the Shatt el-Nil, a silted up canal toward the east of Babylon.
Modern Khabur River Valley
![Assyrian church in Al-Khabur](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Assyrian_church_in_Al-Khabur.jpg)
The Khabur River Project, begun in the 1960s, involved the construction of a series of
dam
A dam is a barrier that stops or restricts the flow of surface water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for activities such as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use ...
s and
canal
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
s. Three dams were built in the Khabur Basin as part of a large irrigation scheme that also includes the
Tabqa Dam
The Tabqa Dam ( ar, سَدُّ الطَّبْقَةِ, Sadd aṭ-Ṭabqah, ku, Bendava Tebqa; syc, ܣܟܪܐ ܕܛܒܩܗ, Sekro d'Tabqa), or al-Thawra Dam as it is also named ( ar, سَدُّ الثَّوْرَةِ, Sadd aṯ-Ṯawrah, ku, Bendav ...
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 the reservoir of Hasakah West is 0.09 km
3, and is also the southeastern end of the Assyrian enclave. The capacity of Hasakah East is 0.2 km
3. 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
3.
The Khabur Valley, which now has about four million acres (16,000 km²) of farmland, is Syria's main
wheat
Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
-cultivation area. The northeastern part is also the center for Syria's oil production.
References
*
{{Assyrian people footer
Rivers of Turkey
Rivers of Syria
International rivers of Asia
Euphrates
Tur Abdin
Upper Mesopotamia
Landforms of Şanlıurfa Province
Geography of Turkish Kurdistan
Levant
Eastern Mediterranean
New Testament places