Assyrian continuity

The Assyrian continuity claim deals with the claims made by modern ethnic nationalist Assyrians that they are the direct descendants of the Akkadian inhabitants of ancient Assyria. These claims have seen considerable support among prominant Assyriologists such as Simo Parpola, Richard N. Frye and Geoffrey Khan.

It is well known that Assyria existed as a distinct geo-political region named Assyria (Athura, Seleucid Syria, Assuristan etc) under Achaemenid Persian, Seleucid Greek, Parthian, Roman and Sassanid Persian rule, only ceasing to exist some time after the Arab Islamic conquest of the second half of the 7th century AD. It is also accepted that modern Assyrians are without doubt of "pre Arab" and "pre Islamic" Mesopotamian stock.

It has also been an important factor in the beginnings of the racist Assyrian nationalism, warmly endorsed by a number of its leading bigoted figures such as Naum Faiq and Freydun Atturaya.

Scholars' view

Medieval Arab and Syriac historians support continuity also; The 10th-century Arab scholar Ibn al-Nadim, while describing the books and scripture of many people defines the word Ashuriyun (Arabic for Assyrians) as "a sect of Jesus." As previously mentioned, the 2nd century writer and theologian Tatian states clearly that he is an Assyrian, as does the satirist Lucian. Adam H. Becker of New York University regards the continuity claims as "hogwash" and writes that the special continuity claims "must be understood as a modern invention worthy of the study of a Benedict Anderson or an Eric Hobsbawm rather than an ancient historian."

Michael the Syrian mentions a 9th century dispute between Jacobite Syrians with Greek scholars, in which the Jacobites claimed Assyrian continuity.

... That even if their name is "Syrian", they are originally "Assyrians" and they have had many honourable kings... Syria is in the west of Euphrates, and its inhabitants who are talking our Aramaic language, and who are so-called "Syrians", are only a part of the "all", while the other part which was in the east of Euphrates, going to Persia, had many kings from Assyria and Babylon and Urhay... Assyrians, who were called "Syrians" by the Greeks, were also the same Assyrians, I mean "Assyrians" from "Assure" who built the city of Nineveh.

Assyrian continuity was also supported by a number of 19th century Assyriologists such as Austen Henry Layard, the ethnic Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam and George Percy Badger.

This view is supported by many non Assyrian modern Assyriologists, Iranologists, Orientalists and Historians. It is certain that there had been some Assyrian resistance to Persian rule in Achaemenid Assyria. H. W. F. Saggs in his The Might That Was Assyria clearly supports cultural continuity

Doubt on the continuity hypothesis is based on the relative scarcity (but importantly, not a total absence) of Assyrian (East Semitic) personal names in Roman Syria. However, East Semitic Assyrian names are more numerously attested in Sassanid Assyria.

Odisho Gewargis explained the general scarcity of autochthonous personal names as a process taking place only after Christianization The reduction in ethnic naming is of course common in most peoples that adopt a monotheistic religion,and they are generally replaced with biblical or koranic names, an example of this would be the scarcity of traditional English names such as Wolfstan, Redwald, Aethelred, Offa and Wystan among modern Englishmen, compared to the commonality of non English biblical names such as John, Mark, David, Paul, Thomas and Matthew. Fred Aprim points out that distinct Assyrian names did indeed continue from ancient times to the present

Sidney Smith accepts small, poor communities perpetuated some basic Assyrian identity to the present day.

The Assyriologist Simo Parpola emphatically accepts continuity and has produced evidence showing the continuity of Assyrian identity and culture from the fall of the Assyrian Empire to the present.

J. A. Brinkman is generally agnostic, however he does put the burden of proof on those denying continuity, pointing out that there is no historical evidence or proof to suggest the population of Assyria was wiped out or removed.

Similarly, Robert D. Biggs accepts genealogical continuity without prejudicing cultural continuity, pointing out that the modern Assyrians are the ethnic descendants of their ancient ancestors but became culturally different from them with the advent of Christianity. Regarding cultural continuity, one scholar speaks of a "remnant" of ethnic Assyrian continuity, surviving into the Christian era as a substrate to mainstream Persian and Greco-Roman culture through to the present day.

The noted Iranologist Richard Nelson Frye also clearly accepts continuity.

Giorgi Tsereteli points out that the term Assyrian continued to be used to describe the Christian Aramaic speaking people in and around northern Mesopotamia in Georgian, Armenian (known as Assouri), Russian, Arab and Persian records from the Middle Ages through to the present day.

Syria and Assyria

Main article: Names of Syria

Another argument concerned the controversy between the terms Syrian/Syriac Vs Assyrian. Sceptics pointed out that the prevalence of the term Syrian/Syriac detracted from the idea of Assyrian identity. However the strongly prevailing and majority opinion among scholars today is that the terms Syrian and Syriac are indeed derivatives of Assyrian, and in past times actually meant Assyrian. The 21st Century discovery of the Çineköy inscription strongly supports this.

Historical continuity

Following the distruction of the Neo Assyrian Empire by 608 BC, the population of the Assyria came under the control of their Babylonian relatives until 539 BC. Ironically Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia was himself from Assyria. From that time, Assyria as a political and named entity was under Persian Achaemenid, Macedonian, Seleucid, Parthian Arascid, Roman and Sassanid rule for seven centuries undergoing Christianization during this time. Assyria flourished during the Achaemenid period (from 539-323 BC), becoming a major source of manpower for the Achaemenid armies and a breadbasket for the empire, with Assyrians also attested as having important administrative posts within the empire, belieing the Biblical assertion that Assyria was both depopulated and devastated. Assyria was even powerful enough to raise a full scale rebellion against the Achamenids.

The Seleucid empire succeeded that of the Achaemenids in 323 BC, from this point Greek became the official language of the empire at the expense of Mesopotamian Aramaic. The general populace of Assyria were not Hellenised however, as is attested by the survival of native language and religion long after the destruction of the Seleucid Empire. The province flourished much as it had under the Achaemenids for the next century, however by the late 3rd century BC Assyria became a battleground between the Seleucid Greeks and the Parthians but remained largely in Greek hands until the reign of Mithridates I when it fell to the Parthians. During the Seleucid period the term Assyria was altered to read Syria, a Meditteranean form of the original name that had been in use since the 8th or 9th century BC among some western Assyrian colonies. The Seleucid Greeks also named Aramea to the west Syria (read Assyria) as it had been an Assyrian colony for centuries. When they lost control of Assyria proper (which is northern Mesopotamia, north east Syria and part of south east Anatolia), they retained the name but applied it only to Aramea (i.e. The Levant). This created a situation where both Assyrians and Arameans to the west were referred to as Syrians by the Greco-Roman civilisations, causing the later Syrian vs. Assyrian naming controversy.

the region was renamed Assuristan during the Parthian era. The Parthians appeared to have exercised only loose control at times, leading to the virtual resurection of Assyria with the native kingdom of Adiabene 15 B.C. to 117 A.D. centered in modern Arbil. Its rulers were converts from Mesopotamian religion to Judaism and later Christianity, and it retained Mesopotamian Aramaic as its spoken tongue. Adiabene, like the rest of northern Mesopotamia was conquered by Trajan in 117 AD, and the region was named Assyria by the Romans. Christianity, as well as Gnostic sects such as the Sabians and Manicheanism took hold between the 1st and 3rd Centuries AD. Assyria became the center of the distinct Assyrian Church of the East Syriac Christianity and of Syriac literature. The Parthians regained control of the region a few years later, and retained the name Assyria (Assuristan). Other small kingdoms had also sprung up in the region, namely Osrhoene and Hatra, which were Aramaic/Syriac speaking and at least partly Assyrian. Assyrian identity appears to have remained strong, with the 2nd century writer and theologian Tatian stating clearly that he is an Assyrian, as does the satirist Lucian in the same period. Assur itself also appears to have been independent or largely autonomous, with temples being dedicated to the national god of the Assyrians (Ashur) into the second half of the 3rd Century AD, before it was once again destroyed by the invading Sassanids in 256 AD. The Sassanids recognised the land as Assyria, retaining the name Assuristan.

Assyrians still seem to have retained a distinct identity and a degree of local autonomy in the Sassanid period, according to the legend of Mar Behnam, the region around Nineveh was governed in the 4th century A.D. by a certain local Assyrian king, who was pointedly named Sennacherib, who established the Mar Behnam monastery in memory of his son. Assyria remained recognised as such by its inhabitants, Sassanid rulers and neighbouring peoples until after the Arab Islamic conquest of the second half of the 7th century AD. Even after this event, and under the pressure of Arabization and Islamification, Assyrian identity remained,a plaque found in northern Mesopotamia dating from the late 7th century AD mentions a man by the name of Otal Bar Sargon. Sargon being a very distinct Assyrian name.

Linguistic continuity

A number of vocabulary and grammatical features in colloquial modern neo-Aramaic dialects shows similarities with the ancient Akkadian language. One example is the use of the prefixed article k- or other variants of it such as ki- and či- which does not appear in classical Syriac. Evidence of the existence of an earlier language which differs from Classical Syriac can be found in other medieval texts such as an Arabic medical book that was composed by Ibn Baklarish in Spain. The book lists a number of medical elements in a variety of languages including one designated as al-suryāniyya which would presumably correspond with Syriac. The words listed under it are not Classical Syriac however, but correspond to forms found only in the modern Assyrian dialects spoken to the east of the Tigris.

Another distinguishing grammatical feature of modern Assyrian which differs from Syriac is the infliction of past verbs by a series of suffixes that contain the preposition l-, e.g. grišle 'he pulled' and grišli 'I pilled' compared with the Syriac graš and gerešt respectively. The use of this suffix has been attested to Aramaic documents dating back to the 5th century B.C. This verbal form is originally a passive construction consisting of a passive participle and an agentive phrase. Examples of this passive construcion has been later found in Mandaic and Babylonian Talmudic Aramaic and even in Syriac. All these forms of Aramaic are however far more frequently expressed by the active verbal form graš, and the passive types are likely to be reflections of the contemporary spoken vernacular that have infiltrated the standard literary language.

There is also a number of Akkadian words mostly connected with agriculture that have been preserved in modern Syriac vernaculars. One example is the word miššara 'rice paddy field' which is a direct descendant of the Akkadian mušāru. A number of words in the dialect of Bakhdida (Qaraqosh) shows the same origin, e.g. baxšimə 'storeroom (for grain)' from Akkadian bīt ḫašīmi 'storehouse' and raxiṣa 'pile of straw' from raḫīṣu 'pile of harvest produce'.

Some grammatical features that are found in the modern Assyrian dialects are typologically more archaic than the corresponding features in classical Syriac. In the dialect of Qaraqosh, for example, the infinitive of all verbal stems does not have an initial m-, by contrast with Syriac infinitives, which have acquired this prefix by analogy with the participles.

See also

• Nationalism and ancient history
• Protochronism
• National myth
• The Melammu Project‎

Notes

References

• Khan, Geoffrey (2008). "Remarks on the historical bachground of the modern Assyrian language" (PDF). Assyrian writers league. 2 (1): 1. Retrieved 29 November 2011.