Kirkuk (; ; ; ) is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs. Kirkuk sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Citadel which sits near the Khasa River.
Kirkuk was proclaimed the "capital of Iraqi culture" in 2010. It is described by the Kurdish leader and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani as “the Jerusalem of Kurdistan”, while it is seen by the Turkmen activist Fatih Salah as the cultural and historical capital of Iraqi Turkmens. The government of Iraq states that Kirkuk represents a small version of Iraq due to its diverse population, and that the city is a model for coexistence in the country.
Etymology
The ancient name of Kirkuk was the Hurrian Arrapha During the Parthian era, a Korkura/Corcura () is mentioned by Ptolemy, which is believed to refer either to Kirkuk or to the site of Baba Gurgur from the city. Since the Seleucid Empire it was known as karkā d-ḇeṯ slōḵ (), which means 'Citadel of the House of Seleucid' in Mesopotamian Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent in that era.
The region around Kirkuk was known historically in the Eastern Aramaic and Syriac Assyrian sources as "Beth Garmai" (). The name "Beth Garmai" or "Beth Garme" may be of Syriac origin which meaning "the house of bones", which is thought to be a reference to bones of slaughtered Achaemenids after a decisive battle between Alexander the Great and Darius III on the plains between the Upper Zab and Diyala river. It was one of a number of independent Neo-Assyrian states which flourished during the Parthian empire (150 BC–226 AD).
It is also thought that region was known during the Parthian and Sassanid periods as Garmakan, which means the 'Land of Warmth' or the 'Hot Land'. In Persian "Garm" means warm;
After the 7th century, Muslim writers used the name Kirkheni (Syriac for "citadel") to refer to the city. Others used other variant, such as Bajermi (a corruption of Aramaic "B'th Garmayeh" or Jermakan (a corruption of Persian Garmakan) .
History
Ancient history
It is suggested that Kirkuk was one of the places occupied by Neanderthals based on archeological findings in the Shanidar Cave settlement. A large amount of pottery shards dating to the Ubaid period were also excavated from several Tells in the city.
Ancient Arrapkha was a part of Sargon of Akkad's Akkadian Empire (2335–2154 BC), and city was exposed to the raids of the Lullubi during Naram-Sin's reign.
Later the city was occupied around 2150 BC by language Isolate speaking Zagros Mountains dwellers who were known as the Gutian people by the Semitic and Sumerian of Mesopotamians. Arraphkha was the capital of the short-lived Guti kingdom (Gutium), before it was destroyed and the Gutians driven from Mesopotamia by the Neo-Sumerian Empire c. 2090 BC. Arrapkha became a part of the Old Assyrian Empire (c.2025–1750 BC), before Hammurabi briefly subjected Assyria to the short-lived Babylonian Empire, after which it again became a part of Assyria c.1725 BC.
However, by the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. the Indo-Aryan Mittani of Anatolia formed a ruling class over the language isolate speaking Hurrians, and began to expand into a Hurri-Mitanni Empire. In the 1450s they attacked Assyria, sacking Assur, and bringing the cities of Gasur and Arrapkha under their control. From c.1450 to 1393 BC the kings of Assyria paid tribute to the kingdom of Mittani.
The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC) overthrew the Hurri-Mitanni in the mid 14th century BC and Arrapha once more became incorporated into Assyria proper. In the 11th and 10th centuries BC the city rose to prominence, becoming an important city in Assyria until the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC).
The Hurri-Mitanni domination of Assyria was broken in the 1390s BC, and Arrapkha once more became an integral part of Assyria with the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1020 BC) which saw the Hurrian population driven from the region. It remained as such throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) where it became an important Assyrian city.
After the fall of Assyria between 612 and 599 BC it was still an integral part of the geo-political province of Assyria – Achaemenid Assyria, Athura, Seleucid Syria, Assyria (Roman province) and Assuristan. In the Parthian and Sassanid eras Kirkuk was capital of the small Assyrian state of Beth Garmai (c.160 BC–250 AD).
The city briefly came to be part of the short-lived Median Empire before falling to the Achaemenid Empire (546–332 BC) where it was incorporated into the province of Athura (Achaemenid Assyria).