Typical ensembles of houses are a part of Tur Abdins Cultural Heritage

Typical ensembles of houses are a part of Tur Abdins Cultural Heritage

A typical ensemble of several houses in Mziza, Tur Abdin

 In the end of the 20th century there had been efforts to get the whole region or at least parts of Tur Abdin declared as a Cultural World Heritage. As there was not enough interest and resonance these efforts failed and noone took them up again.

But its a pity, as Tur Abdin is surely a region with a huge and immense cultural heritage, containing cultural heritage sites of several millennia up to the present. And all that heritage should be preserved and protected.

This post deals about one small puzzle-piece of Tur Abdins cultural heritage: a typical ensemble of houses in the village of Mzizah in the Midyat region of Tur Abdin.

Arrangements like this are quite common in several villages. Several housings are building a small complex in which structures of different age and style are together. 

Details of the buildings at the right side of the ensemble

 On the right hand there is a clear cubic building on the rooftop of an elder building. The arrangement shows its been the house of a quite wealthy man. It would be interesting to have a look into the interior, what was not possible as time was rare and the evening came.

Detail of the building at the left

On the left side there is a quite different building, which was surely the home of more simple and poor people. It looks like it was built in at least two steps.

The picture below shows a detail of that building:

The entrance

Promoters of Cultural Heritage

Promoters of Cultural Heritage

Tur Abdin and whole Turkey, as well as the whole area of Mesopotamia have an immense and rich Cultural Heritage dating back millennia before Christ. 

Also all these ancient sites would be protected and preserved in Europe, North America and other parts of the world, noone cares about most of them in these regions. Of course, some exceptions are declared Cultural World Heritage, others are under care of museums. But quite often this care consists in a fence and none cares about after the fence is built. 

Most of the eldest and largest sites of cultural heritage are widely unknown, as they are outside, away from villages and cities. Only known by a few private researchers. People that invest a lot of time and money to search for Cultural Heritage Sites, explore them, take PGS-data and take pictures to document them.

I am very thankful some of these guys took their time to guide me to some of theses places in autumn of 2015 and in spring 2016. Some of these places would be like paradise for archeologists: large areas with different layers of historic buildings, ruins above the ground, built upon far elder structures which were built on another layer of elder structures...

One of the aims of this blog will be to talk about the richness and variety of the Cultural Heritage of Tur Abdin and Mesopotamia. I hope, some of the people i will reach with these reports will get interested and will - maybe - become theirselves promoters of the efforts to protect, save and research this unique Cultural Heritage.

I want to thank people like Eliyo Eliyo, an Assyrian from Sweden, Adem Coskun (Bethkustan) and Kawme Sami Dik from Mardin for the help and support they provided me.

The Millstone

The Millstone

In most of the villages of Tur Abdin the millstones are still existing, also most of them are out of use.

Usually they can be found a little bit outside of the village. At the places where people used to work. Where the old people sat down and talked and the children were laughing and playing. And within all this, a donkey was walking around, driving the millstone.

That´s how flour was produced in the old days, before the villages were depopulated during Seyfo.

I took this photo in Zaz, Tur Abdin, in November of 2015.

Where the stones are talking

Where the stones are talking...

„If the stones could talk“, says the proverb. If one ever comes to Tur Abdin, he stops thinking about how it came to this wisdom. In Tur Abdin you learn to understand it, as the stones of Tur Abdin are the real story-tellers!
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What you see in the picture is not an official Seyfo-memorial.

There is no official memorial for Seyfo, the 1915 – genocide, in Tur Abdin. But on the other hand complete Tur Abdin is a memorial. A memorial, formed by all the left and decaying villages and houses that give witness that the whole population of Tur Abdin was taken away a hundred years ago.

All the people, men and women, children, grandparents…

Shot, slayed, desecrated, displaced. The corpses buried in a hurry, somewhere in the fields or thrown into one of the caverns…

Delivered to the wind, abandoned, forgotten – like the left buildings…

There is no sense in denying that Genocide. It´s useless, as the stones are indicting and condemning. 

They are indicting the murderers and offenders that committed all these atrocities. They are also condemning those who are still denying and keeping back what really happened.

Those stones are talking, they are not tongue-tied.

These stones are mourning, accusing in silence.

They seem to be silent – but in reality they are crying, shouting. Clear and loud…

By day and by night…

Because the stones are the surviving witnesses…

The old priest in the Synagogue

The old priest in the Synagogue

It happened in the old Synagogue of Antioch (nowadays Antakya) in Hatay-province of Turkey. The Elder of the Synagugue told us about the history of the jewish community of Antioch, which dates back to very old times. He had to interrupt, as the bell of the entrance was ringing. In came an old man who sat down in the corner of the synagogue.

Of course, there are not so many people clearly coming from the West and visiting this Synagogue. So we asked the old man, where he came from...

He said: "well, i´m an old retired anglican priest from Great Britain. There is a wish that grew in my heart over many years: The wish to make a pilgrimage to Antioch, the place where the Christians were named Christians for the first time...

You know, when the first Christians, Peter and Paul, came here, they came to the Synagogue to teach...

So one day i realized i will have to go to Antioch to bring my thanks to the Jews, to our elder brethren. So that´s why i came here today: I want to pray the "Schma Israel" here in this Synagogue. I want to thank God that he choose me to be a priest. I want to thank him for a long and fulfilled life. And i want to give respect to my elder brothers, the Jews.
And after some time of silence the old priest stood up, took place in front of the courtain, that covers the Thora-shrine, spread his arms and prayed the "Schma Israel"... "schəma jisrael adonai elohenu adonai echad..."


What a deep and touching moment... i am sure, God gave a lot of blessing...

And i thank God that he allowed me to be there. That HE had managed to bring me there, just at the time, the old pries came... I don´t know his name, but i won´t forget this...

Abuna Bashar Khtea: A role model of faith

 Abuna Bashar Khtea: A role model of faith

Bashar Khtea, a chaldean-catholic priest from the Nineva-Plains is one of those iraqi priests that can be role-models of faith for us.

As hundreds of thousands of other assyro-aramean Christians he hat to flee from his village in the Ninive-Palins in August 2014 and found shelter in Ankawa, the mostly Christian-inhabited city in the periphery of Erbil, the north-iraqian capital.

Families from his village and surrounding villages gathered around him. Together they moved to "Shebab Merkez"-Camp outside of Ankawa. A camp of container homes around a hall that was used as church. Before going there, the displaced people had had to live in tents for some months.

In "Schebab Merkez" about 150 families were living under very umcomfortable circumstances, quite different to e.g. Ashti2-Camp, where there are real roads between the container-homes, "Shebab Merkez" was built at a narrow plave, allowing only small pathways between the containers.

I met Abuna Abuna Bashar Khtea on Palm Sunday of 2016 - my friend from nearby camp "Amal Hope Center" had invited me (and August) to take part in the Holy Mass and the Celebrations of Palm Sunday at "Shebab Merkez".

It was a morning with cold, strong wind. When Holy Mass was finished, the wind blew rain through the camp. And there was w moment of consideration. But then Abuna Bashar announced: No, we despite the bad weather conditions we will walk the procession.

So the parish walked singing through the rain, around the whole camp - maybe a little bit fast than they had done with good weather. But that was not what counted.

It was just the other way round: For me, as a western European, where Palm Sunday usually consists of a very short "procession", which will never lead through rainy weather, this was a strong testimony of faith! First some children, then the Abuna with the cross, then the parish people. And it was feelable, how deep his love to the crucified Lord is. A love, that is a source of power for him.

The deep inner joy in his voice and his eyes, when he intonated the worship songs after the procession - oh, how much would i appreciate to have some priests like him here in Europe!

The priests of Iraq, they have a very deep face. They are challenged with managing worldly things even more as our European priests are, as the quite often have to manage the circumstances of daily life for their flock. But they always have an open ear for the questions and needs of their people. They give advice, they encourage - and from their heart they spread love and joy in Jesus.

Yes, i was very thankful that we, the strangers, were welcome in love and allowed to join the celebrations.

In June i wanted to visit Abuna Bashar again. But Camp "Schebab Merkez" was not existing any more. I was told, that the displaced persons of the camp were able to move to small new built houses the church has built for them.´The camp was closed and dismantled. I was sad i did not find the time to search for Abuna Bashar Khtea. But as soon a s possible i will - if God alows - visit hom and some of his faithful to see and hear, how they are.