Siirt
Siirt ( "Siʿird", , , , ) is a city in southeastern Turkey and the seat of Siirt Province. The population of the city according to the 2009 census was 129,188. The majority of the city's population is Kurdish although a significant Arab population lives in the town. History. The Hurrians first settled in the region some four thousand years ago. Later, Hurrian-speaking people founded the Kingdom of Mitanni that also encompassed the area of Siirt Province and lasted from around 1500 BCE to 1300 BCE. Previously known as "Saird", in pre-Islamic times Siirt was a diocese of the Eastern Orthodox  Church ("Sirte", Σίρτη in Byzantine Greek). In the medieval times, Arzan was the main city and it competed with Hasankeyf over the control the region, Siirt was only to become a center of the region in the 14th century. But it was still dependent from Hasankeyf until the 17th century. An illuminated manuscript known as the Syriac Bible of Paris may have originated from the Bishop of Siirt's library, Siirt's Christians would worshipped in Syriac, a liturgical language descended from Aramaic still in use by the Chaldean Rite, other Eastern Christians in India, and the Nestorians along the  Silk Road as far as China. The Chronicle of Seert was preserved in the city; it describes the ecclesiastical history of the Persian realm through the middle of the seventh century. From 1858 to 1915 the city was the seat of a bishop of the Chaldean Catholic Church. Most of the city's Assyrians, including Addai Scher their archbishop were killed during the Assyrian genocide along with the loss of the Syriac manuscript of Theodore of Mopsuestia's De Incarnatione. During World War I, the Armenian population of Siirt became a victim of the Armenian genocide. Government. In the municipal  elections of March 2019 Berivan Helen Işık of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was elected mayor. She was dismissed from her post on 15 May 2020 and detained over terror charges. Ali Fuat Atik, the Governor of the Siirt province was appointed trustee by the Ministry of the Interior. Landmarks. The city's landmark is the Great Mosque ("Ulu Cami") built in 1129 by the Great Seljuk Sultan Mahmut II who belonged to the main branch of the dynasty that ruled from Baghdad after this Turkish Empire had split into several branches. The mosque was restored in 1965. Trivia. Siirt  was Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's constituency from 2003 to 2007. His wife, Mrs. Emine Erdoğan, is from Siirt and the PM had been elected to the Turkish Grand National Assembly in a by-election held in Siirt in 2003. Although Siirt remains one of the poorer cities in Turkey, some neighborhoods have fine and modern housing including new shops, banks and hotels. Climate. Siirt has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen: "Csa," Trewartha": Cs") with very hot, dry summers and chilly, wet winters. During winter months there is frequent frost and occasional snowfall.