"العراق والخليج الفارسي" [و‎‎٣‎٤‎٠] (٨٦٢/٦٨٢)

PORTS AND INLAND TOWNS 529
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Erbil. 36° 11' N., 44 0 01' E.; alt. c. 1,360 feet. Pop. 17,000. Liwa cap.
Rainfall station (P. and T.).
Erbil lies in a fertile region of the Assyrian plains between the two Zabs
(alt. 1,360 ft.), 52 miles by road south-east of Mosul. Two streams which
skirt the town, the Chai Shaikh Qazi on the north-west and the Chai Erbil
on the south, are generally dry except during a winter spate, and cultiva
tion depends on rain and on irrigation by karez. The inhabitants are
mainly Turkomans with a strong Kurdish admixture and a colony of Jews
and Christians. The town is a wealthy agricultural market centre.
History
Erbil, the Assyrian Arba-ilu {class. Arbela) or City of the Four Gods,
claims with some justice to be the oldest town in the world which has been
continuously inhabited. Its great mound was formed by the deposit of an
uncounted series of settlements. Certainly it was a great place in Baby
lonian and Assyrian times, being especially famous for its temple of Ishtar.
In the Achaemenid Empire it continued to flourish. It was from Arbela
that the decisive victory of Alexander the Great over Darius III in 331 b.c.
took its better known name, though the battle was fought north of the
Great Zab in the plain of Mosul. Later Arbela became the capital of the
Parthian sub-kingdom of Adiabene and the burial place of its kings. Its
pagan sanctity faded with the spread of Christianity and the town was only
of provincial importance after the Moslem conquest, though the battle of
the Great Zab, by which the caliphate passed from the Omayyads to the
Abbasids, was fought in the neighbourhood (a.d. 75 °)* position as
a road and market centre guaranteed its prosperity, and it survived
the Mongol invasions though besieged by Tamerlane in a.d. 1400. The
Persian conqueror Nadir Shah captured it in 1743 after a 60 days’ siege
and held it for a while. In 1826 it was controlled for a short time by
Mohammed Khor, the blind Beg of Ruwandiz (p. 262). But like Kirkuk
its peace has generally been undisturbed, and the main effect even of the
Great War was only to enrich the landowners and merchants.
General Description (fig. 83; photos. 1, 204)
Erbil is dominated by its citadel or Qala, which stands on an impressive
tel rising 200 feet above the plain with a slope of 1 in 1 and 600 yards in
diameter. The citadel has a ring-wall, into which houses have been
built with windows and balconies overlooking the plain, and which is
pierced by two gates, on the south and east, approached by cobbled ramps.
This part of the town, which has a population of about 6,000, contains the
purest Turkish element and includes the homes of the richer merchants
and landowners. Inside there are many narrow, winding, and intricate
streets and even underground passages. Town aghas have magnificent
guest-houses built of brick, some of them with pavements and columns of