KURDISTAN 159
the Diarbekir and Erzeroum villages, where they pay all the regular taxes and are also drawn for the conscription) up to the semi-independent Kurds of Bohtán, of Mudikán, and of the Deyrsim, who never pay taxes except at the rare intervals that the Government is able to occupy their country with a military force, and who have never hitherto, except on very rare occasions, supplied soldiers to the army either regular or irregular."
And, if this uncertain liability to taxation is true of the Kurds of Erzeroum and Diarbekir, it applies equally to the districts of Hakkári and Rowandiz, and to the great tribes such as the Herki, Hartúshi, and Hyderánli, who migrate between Persia and Turkey. In Sulimaníeh, on the other hand, as well as in the Persian provinces of Azerbijan, Ardelán, and Kirmánsháhán, the revenue derived from the Kurdish population is fixed, and may be estimated at £1 per house instead of the £1, 6s. which is the usual Osmanli rate.
Antiquities. – Kurdistan abounds in antiquities of the most varied and interesting character. There is in the first place a series of rock-cut cuneiform inscriptions, extending from Malatíeh on the west to Miyandáb (in Persia) on the east, and from the banks of the Arras on the north to Rowandiz on the south, which record the glories of a Turanian dynasty, who ruled the country of Nairi during the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., contemporaneously with the lower Assyrian empire. Intermingled with these are a few genuine Assyrian inscriptions of an earlier date; and in one instance, at Van, a later tablet of Xerxes brings the record down to the period of Grecian history. The most ancient monuments of this class, however, are to be found at Holwán and in the neighbourhood, where the sculptures and inscriptions belong probably to the Guti and Luli tribes, and date from the early Babylonian period. Excavations at this spot or in the mounds along the course of the Diyáleh, which is the great river of southern Kurdistan, or more especially at Yassin Tepeh, the site of the ancient city of Shahrizor, would probably lead to the discovery of relics cognate with those which have been found in the palaces of Nineveh and Babylon.
Information has also been recently received that a cemetery full of inscribed sepulchral urns has been laid bare by a landslip in the mountains between Sulimaníeh and Kirmánsháhán, and the description is calculated to arouse the liveliest interest, though until the spot has been visited by some European scholar no definite opinion can be given as to the character and antiquity of the remains.
In the northern Kurdish districts which represent the Arzanene, Intilene, Anzitene, Zabdicene, and Moxuene of the ancients, there are also many interesting remains of Roman cities, well worth examining. Arzen, Miyafarikin (ancient Martyropolis), and Sisauronon have already been reported on by Consul Taylor, but there is still abundant room for research, and attention should be especially directed to the ruins of Dunisir near Dara, which Sachau the great Orientalist has recently identified with the Armenian capital of Tigranocerta, a city that has long been the despair of comparative geographers. Of the Macedonian and Parthian periods there are remains both sculptured and inscribed at several points in Kurdistan: at Bisitun, in a cave at Amadíeh, at the Mithraic temple of Kereftú, on the rocks at Sir Púl-i-Zohab near the ruins of Holwán, and probably in some other localities, such as the Bálik country between Lahiján and Koi-Sanják, which have never been visited by Europeans; but the most interesting site in all Kurdistan, perhaps in all western Asia, is the ruined fire temple of Páí Kúlí on the southern frontier of Sulimaníeh, a spot that has been hurriedly visited by two or three European travellers, but never thoroughly examined. Among the debris of this temple, which are scattered over a bare hillside, are to be found above one hundred slabs, inscribed with Parthian and Pehlevi characters, the fragments of a wall which formerly supported the eastern face of the edifice, and bore a bilingual legend of great length, dating from the Sassanian period. Not more than half of the inscribed slabs have as yet been copied, time and labour being required to clear out the other slabs which lie embedded in the earth on the slope of the hill down which they have rolled, and the locality, moreover, being one that cannot be easily examined or even visited, owing to its exposed position among the brigand tribes of the frontier, but it is to be earnestly hoped that, when an opportunity does offer, every fragment of inscription may be recovered, so that it may be possible to reconstruct the entire legend, which, independent of its historical interest, is of special importance as the longest and latest specimen of the lapidary Pehlevi writing. There are also remarkable Sassanian remains in other parts of Kurdistan, – at Salmús to the north, and at Kirmánsháhán and Kasr-i-Shírín on the Turkish frontier to the south; and it is probable that an active search among the hills would discover many similar objects of interest. It may indeed be asserted that there is no region of the East at the present day which deserves a more careful scrutiny and promises a richer harvest to the antiquarian explorer than the lands inhabited by the Kurds from Erzeroum to Kirmánsháhán. Dr Schultz in former times and Consul Taylor more recently have done much to illustrate northern Kurdistan between Van and Diarbekir, but the inner mountains of Bohtán, Hakkári, Rowandiz, and the Bálik country are still almost a "terra incognita," and require careful examination.
History. – With regard to the origin of the Kurds, it was formerly
considered sufficient to describe them as the descendants of the
Carduchi, who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the
mountains, but modern research ascends far beyond the period of the
Greeks. We now find that at the dawn of history the mountains
overhanging Assyria were held by a people named Gútú, a title
which signified "a warrior," and which was rendered in Assyrian
by the synonym of Gardu or Kardu, the precise term quoted by
Strabo to explain the name of the Cardaces ((
Greek characters)). These Gútú
were a Turanian tribe of such power as to be placed in the early
cuneiform records on an equality with the other nations of western
Asia, that is, with the Syrians and Hittites, the Susians, Elynueans,
and Accadians of Babylonia ; and during the whole period of the
Assyrian empire they seem to have preserved a more or less inde
pendent political position. After the fall of Nineveh they coalesced
with the Medes, and, in common with all the nations inhabiting the
high plateaus of Asia Minor, Armenia, and Persia, became gradually
Aryanized, owing to the immigration at this period of history of
tribes in overwhelming numbers which, from whatever quarter they
may have sprung, belonged certainly to the Aryan family.
The Gútú or Kúrdu were reduced to subjection by Cyrus before he descended upon Babylon, and furnished a contingent of fighting men to his successors, being thus mentioned under the names of Saspirians and Alarodians in the muster roll of the army of Xerxes which was preserved by Herodotus.
In later times they passed successively under the sway of the Macedonians, the Parthians, and Sassanians, being especially be friended, if we may judge from tradition as well as from the remains still existing in the country, by the Arsacian monarchs, who were probably of a cognate race. Gotarzes indeed, whose name may per haps be translated "chief of the Gútú," was traditionally believed to be the founder of the Guráns, the principal tribe of southern Kurdistan,[1] and his name and titles are still preserved in a Greek inscription at Bisitun near the Kurdish capital of Kirmánsháhán. Under the caliphs of Baghdad the Kurds were always giving trouble in one quarter or another. In 224 A.D., and again in 293, there were formidable insurrections in northern Kurdistan; and a third time, in 309, the Boide amír, Azad-ad-Dowleh, was obliged to lead the forces of the caliphate against the southern Kurds, capturing the famous fortress of Sermáj, of which the ruins are to be seen at the present day near Bisitun, and reducing the province of Shahrizor with its capital city now marked by the great mound of Yassin Teppeh. The most nourishing period of Kurdish power was probably during the 12th century of our era, when the great Saladin, who belonged to the Rewendi branch of the Hadabáni tribe, founded the Ayubite dynasty of Syria, and Kurdish chiefships were estab lished, not only to the east and west of the Kurdistan mountains, but as far as Khorásán upon one side and Egypt and Yemen on the other. During the Mongol and Tartar domination of western Asia the Kurds in the mountains remained for the most part passive, yielding a reluctant obedience to the provincial governors of the plains, and for the last three or four centimes they have been divided in their allegiance between the Turkish and Persian crowns. After Sultan Selim in 1514 had defeated the army of Shah Ismael, the founder of the Saffavean dynasty,he employed one of his generals, Sultan Hussein Beg of Amadíeh, to recover Shahrizor and its de pendencies from Persia; and from that time to the present day the political status has not been materially disturbed. The frontier line indeed bisecting Kurdistan from north to south, which was agreed upon in 1047 A.H. , between Sultan Murad IV. and Shah Saffi, after the recovery of Baghdad by the former sovereign, is substan tially the same line that was adopted by the Russian and British commissioners who were employed in 1840-42 to mediate between the two Asiatic powers and delimit their respective territories. But in the meantime changes of some moment have occurred in the interior organization of Kurdistan. Both in Turkey and in Persia the independent power of the Kurds has been much curtailed. In Turkey the pashas of Kharpút, Erzeroum, and Diarbekir have been invested with larger powers of control, while the authority of the sultan has been further strengthened by the establishment of Turkish
1 "The Kalhúr tribe are traditionally descended from Gudarz-ibn-Gío, whose son Roham was sent by Balhman Keiáni to destroy Jerusalem and bring the Jews into captivity. This Roham is the individual usually called Bokht-i-nasser (Nebuchadnezzar), and he ultimately succeeded to the throne. The neighbouring country has ever since remained in the hands of his descendants, who are called Guráns" (Sheref-Nameh, Persian MS.). The same popular tradition still exists in the country, and ΓΩΤΑΡΖΗΟ ΓΕΟΠΟΘΡΟΣ is found on the rock at Bisitun, showing that Gudarz-ibn-Gío was really an historic personage. See Journ. Roy. Geog. Soc., vol. ix. p. 114.
- ↑ 1
