Nuhadra

Duhok

Duhok

City in the Kurdistan Region, Iraq. Historically known as Nohadra in Assyria

Duhok (Kurdish: دهۆک, romanized: Dihok;[2][3] Arabic: دهوك, romanized: Dohūk;[4] Syriac: ܒܝܬ ܢܘܗܕܪܐ, romanized: Beth Nohadra,[5][6] Lishanid Noshan: דוהוך, romanized: Dohok[7]) is a city in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the capital city of Duhok Governorate.

Quick Facts Dihok, Country ...
Barzan Highway in central Duhok
View of Duhok from the sky

Name

The original name of the city was Nuhadra, an Assyrian town dating to the late Bronze Age, which later became a semi independent Neo-Assyrian province and later ecclesiastical province of Beth Nuhadra. In the Medieval era city of Duhok received its name from the Kurdish word ’du’ (two) and ’hok’ (lump) as a tax payment of two lumps from the basket of each passing caravan that often carry wheat and barley.[8] According to a tradition presented by Sasson Nahum, Dohuk was initially named Dohuk-e Dasinya, signifying "Dohuk of the Yezidis". However, after a massacre of the Yezidis, the town was abandoned, leading to the settlement of Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the area.[9]

History

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of Duhok.

The city of Duhok has an ancient Assyrian and Hurrian history attached to it from the time of the Middle Assyrian Empire and Urartu and was originally Assyrian inhabited and called Nuhadra.[8]

The city joined the Kurdish principality of Badinan sometime in the 13th or 14th centuries under the foundation of the Kurdish Hakkari tribe. As observed by Evliya Celebi in Seyahatnâme (Book of Travels), the principality was divided into: Akre, Zaxo, Shixoyi, Duhok, Zibari, and Muzuri.[10]

Ottoman period

In 1820, Rich described Duhok as a small town comprising 300 houses, serving as the principal site for the Doski tribe, accompanied by eighty additional villages. The missionary Henry Aaron Stern (1851) observed Dohuk's diverse population, which included Jewish residents. Stern further noted that the kiahya, or village mayor, was an Assyrian of Chaldean Catholic affiliation. By 1859, Rabbi Yehiel found two minyans of Jews in the area. The Muslim and Assyrian Christian communities comprised around a hundred households.[9]

In 1929, the settled population reached approximately 3,500 inhabitants, with Kurds forming the majority. Among the 550 households, 65 were Assyrian Christian, and 30 were Jewish.[9]

Modern times

The University of Duhok was founded on 31 October 1992.[11]

The city is home to diverse ethnic groups, including Iraqi Kurds who are the majority, while other minorities include Assyrians, Yazidis and Arabs. The city also hosts tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), most of whom are Yazidis and Assyrians after the Islamic State expansion in Iraq in 2014 and the subsequent Fall of Mosul and the Nineveh Plains region after two more months of fighting, in addition to the Sinjar massacre in which 5,000 Yezidis were massacred during the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL.[12][13] According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM-Iraq), as of June 2019, Duhok Governorate hosted 326,106 IDPs across 169 different locations.[14]

Archaeology

In 2020, researchers discovered in the Balyuz hills, ten kilometers west of Duhok City, an ancient tablet with Greek inscription which dates back to 165 B.C. The inscriptions refer to Demetrius, the region's ruler during that time.[15]

Seven kilometers southwest of Duhok, Halamata Cave is an archaeological site containing the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai Reliefs, associated with the northern canal system built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (r. 704–681 BCE) to carry water to his capital city of Nineveh".[16]

Climate

According to the Köppen-Geiger climate classification system, Duhok, like most of Upper Mesopotamia, has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) featuring sweltering, virtually rainless summers and cool to cold, wet winters. Precipitation falls in the cooler months, being heaviest in late winter and early spring. The city can get around two or three snowy days yearly, with more severe falls in the uplands. Summers are virtually rainless, with rain returning in late autumn.

More information Climate data for Duhok, Iraq, Month ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Iraq: Governorates & Cities".
  2. [2]
    "K24 rêjeya dengdanê li navçeyên cuda yên Herêma Kurdistan belav kir". Kurdistan24 (in Kurdish). Retrieved 18 December 2019.
  3. [3]
    "كوردستانی سەرسوڕهێنەر- وێبسایتی فەرمی دەستەی گشتی گەشت و گوزار". bot.gov.krd. Retrieved 18 December 2019.
  4. [4]
    قناة التغيير. "دهوك تغرق بالفيضانات والدفاع المدني يحذر المواطنين الخروج من منازلهم - نشرة أخبار الثالثة" (in Arabic). Retrieved 21 March 2024.
  5. [5]
    Kadr, Salahden Ghareb (2010). Klimatische Optimierung von verdichteten Wohnhäusern in Irakisch-Kurdistan (in German). Univerlagtuberlin. ISBN 978-3-7983-2238-7.
  6. [6]
    "Duhok". Retrieved Oct 6, 2020.
  7. [7]
    Jared Greenblatt (2011). The Jewish Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Amәdya. p. 11. ISBN 978-90-04-18257-8.
  8. [8]
    "Duhok City". dhk-pti.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
  9. [9]
    Zaken, M. (2007-01-01), "Chapter Three. Dohuk", Jewish Subjects and Their Tribal Chieftains in Kurdistan, Brill, pp. 79–96, doi:10.1163/ej.9789004161900.i-376.24, ISBN 978-90-474-2212-9, retrieved 2023-10-10
  10. [10]
  11. [11]
    "University of Duhok (UoD)". Retrieved 19 October 2022.
  12. [12]
    Khalel, Sheren; Vickery, Matthew (27 October 2014). "The Forgotten Yazidis". Foreign Policy Magazine.
  13. [13]
    Interactive. "Iraq's exodus". www.aljazeera.com.
  14. [14]
    "DTM-IOM-Iraq Mission". iraqdtm.iom.int. Retrieved 2019-08-08.
  15. [15]
    Researchers in Kurdistan's Duhok find artifact over 2,000 years old
  16. [16]
    "Maltai Rock Reliefs | Mapping Mesopotamian Monuments". mcid.mcah.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  17. [17]
    "Dahuk, Iraq Climate". My Forecast. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
  18. [18]
    "Climate, weather, temperatures – City : DUHOK". Levoyageur. Retrieved 2014-01-04.
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