Akkaya (; ) is a village in the

Çukurca District Çukurca District is a district in the Hakkâri Province of Turkey. The district had a population of 17,734 in 2023 with the town of Çukurca as its seat. Its area is 725 km2. And Çukurca has border with iraqi Kurdistan at the south point o ...

Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, ; ), is a province in the southeast of Turkey. The administrative centre is the city of Hakkâri. Its area is 7,095 km2, and its population is 287,625 (2023). The current Governor is Ali Çelik. The province encompasses ...

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 Alan tribe and had a population of 755 in 2023. The four

hamlets A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...

of Dağdibi (), Sarıyer (), Dikenli () and Kunaklı () are attached to Akkaya. Dikenli and Kunaklı are unpopulated.

History

Sārāspīdōn (today called Akkaya) was historically inhabited by

Assyrian people Assyrians (, ) are an ethnic group Indigenous peoples, indigenous to Mesopotamia, a geographical region in West Asia. Modern Assyrians Assyrian continuity, share descent directly from the ancient Assyrians, one of the key civilizations of Mesop ...

and located in the Upper

Tyari Tyari () is an Assyrian tribe and a historical district within Hakkari, Turkey. The area was traditionally divided into Upper Tyari (''Tyari Letha'') and Lower Tyari (''Tyari Khtetha'')–each consisting of several Assyrian villages. Both Upper ...

district in the

Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: *Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq *Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey *Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, ; ), is a province i ...

region. It had two churches and was served as part of the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, prov ...

of the

Patriarch of the Church of the East The patriarch of the Church of the East (also known as patriarch of the East, patriarch of Babylon, the catholicose of the East or the grand metropolitan of the East) is the patriarch, or leader and head bishop (sometimes referred to as Cath ...

. According to the English missionary

George Percy Badger George Percy Badger (6 April 1815 – 21 February 1888) was an English Anglican missionary, and a scholar of oriental studies. He is mainly known for his doctrinal and historical studies about the Church of the East. Life ''George Percy Badg ...

, the village was inhabited by 80 Assyrian families in 1850, all of whom belonged to the

Church of the East The Church of the East ( ) or the East Syriac Church, also called the Church of Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the Persian Church, the Assyrian Church, the Babylonian Church, the Chaldean Church or the Nestorian Church, is one of three major branches o ...

and were served by two priests. Badger recorded that the villagers possessed 3000 sheep, 150 oxen, and 160 muskets; he also noted

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

was mined at the village for use in the production of bullets. By 1877, there were 50 Assyrians families at Sārāspīdōn with two priests when visited by

Edward Lewes Cutts Edward Lewes Cutts was an English writer, antiquarian and curate, specialising in archaeology and the study of ecclesiastical history. Life and church career Cutts was born on 2 March 1824 in Sheffield. He was the son of John Priston Cutts, a ...

. There were 100 Assyrian families in 1914, as per 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 ...

, Sārāspīdōn was attacked and destroyed by Turks and Kurds led by the vali of Mosul, Haydar Bey, on 11 June 1915 although most of the villagers were able to flee.

Population

Population history of the village from 2007 to 2023:

References

Notes Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Çukurca District Kurdish settlements in Hakkâri Province Historic Assyrian communities in Hakkâri Province Places of the Sayfo Villages in Çukurca District