page_title: Iraqi Kurdistan
section_title: Pre-Islamic period
hierarchical_section_title: Iraqi Kurdistan / History / Pre-Islamic period
caption_attribution_description: English: The Neolithic village of Jarmo in Iraqi Kurdistan 1954
context_page_description: Iraqi Kurdistan or Southern Kurdistan is the Kurdish-populated region in northern Iraq. Northern Iraq is considered to be one of the four parts of Kurdistan, which also includes parts of southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and northwestern Iran. Much of the geographical and cultural region of Iraqi Kurdistan is part of the Kurdistan Region, an autonomous region recognized by the Constitution of Iraq.
context_section_description: In prehistoric times, the region was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The region was host to the Jarmo culture circa 7000 BC. The earliest neolithic site in Kurdistan is at Tell Hassuna, the centre of the Hassuna culture, circa 6000 BC. The region was inhabited by the northern branch of the Gutian/Hurrians around 2400 BC.
  It was ruled by the Akkadian Empire from 2334 BC until 2154 BC. Assyrian kings are attested from the 23rd century BC according to the Assyrian King List, and Assyrian city-states such as Ashur and Ekallatum started appearing in the region from the mid-21st century BC. Prior to the rule of king Ushpia circa 2030 BC, the city of Ashur appears to have been a regional administrative center of the Akkadian Empire, implicated by Nuzi tablets, subject to their fellow Akkadian Sargon and his successors.
  Large cities were built by the Assyrians, including Ashur, Nineveh, Guzana, Arrapkha, Imgur-Enlil (Balawat), Shubat-Enlil and Kalhu (Calah / Nimrud). One of the major Assyrian cities in the area, Erbil (Arba-Ilu), was noted for its distinctive cult of Ishtar, and the city was called "the Lady of Ishtar" by its Assyrian inhabitants. The Assyrians ruled the region from the 21st century BC.
  The region was known as Assyria, and was the center of various Assyrian empires (particularly during the periods 1813–1754 BC, 1385–1076 BC and the Neo Assyrian Empire of 911–608 BC. Between 612 and 605 BC, the Assyrian empire fell and it passed to the neo-Babylonians and later became part of the Athura Satrap within the Achaemenian Empire from 539 to 332 BC, where it was known as Athura, the Achaemenid name for Assyria.
  The region fell to Alexander The Great in 332 BC and was thereafter ruled by the Greek Seleucid Empire until the mid 2nd century BC (and was renamed Syria, a Greek corruption of Assyria), when it fell to Mithridates I of Parthia. The Assyrian semi-independent kingdom of Adiabene was centred in Erbil in the first Christian centuries. Later, the region was incorporated by the Romans as the Roman Assyria province but shortly retaken by the Sassanids who established the Satrap of Assuristan (Sassanid Assyria) in it until the Arab Islamic conquest. The region became a center of the Assyrian Church of the East and a flourishing Syriac literary tradition during Sassanid rule.
caption: The Neolithic village of Jarmo
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