Kurdish History Journal
Articles filed under Kurdish History and Resilience.
Sami Abdul Rahman Park, the largest park in the Kurdistan Region — a vast green oasis of lakes and gardens in Erbil, built on a former regime military base and named for a Kurdish leader killed in 2004.
Read article →The Kurdish Textile Museum brings rugs, clothing and other woven objects into the historic setting of Erbil Citadel. Published fieldwork, a conservation study and interviews with founder Lolan Sipan document the collection’s importance and the practical challenges of passing on textile skills.
Read article →Jalil Khayat Mosque opened in Erbil in January 2007. Its family-funded construction, varied architectural influences and spaces for worship, teaching and community gatherings explain its place in the modern city.
Read article →Qaysari Bazaar forms part of Erbil’s historic commercial centre below the citadel. Its surviving Ottoman market buildings, tailoring workshops and recent restoration show how architecture and livelihoods shape the old city together. The May 2024 fire added a major new chapter to this history.
Read article →Slemani Museum connects the archaeology of the Zagros with Mesopotamian writing and Sasanian royal monuments. Its prehistory and Paikuli galleries show how excavation, conservation and collaboration turn fragmentary objects into historical evidence.
Read article →Amna Suraka in Sulaymaniyah combines a former Baath security compound with exhibitions about repression, Anfal and Kurdish cultural life. Its history includes detention, the 1991 uprising, displaced families and conversion into a museum.
Read article →Mar Petyun is the Chaldean Catholic Church of Saint Pethion in Diyarbakır’s historic Sur district. Its stone buildings, manuscript collection and recent reopening document both the religious life and the changing circumstances of the city’s Chaldean community.
Read article →The palace’s inscription and garden record Ardalan patronage, while dated 2026 interviews document damage, stabilization and plans for renewed museum use.
Read article →Sanandaj’s Dar ul-Ihsan is both a mosque and a madrasa. Its early nineteenth-century foundation, later enlargement and repairs reveal a changing institution rather than a monument completed in a single moment.
Read article →Surp Giragos in Diyarbakır, once the largest Armenian church in the Middle East — a monument to the Armenian presence in Amed, damaged in the 20th century and restored, a symbol of memory and endurance.
Read article →The Ahlat Seljuk cemetery on Lake Van — a vast medieval graveyard of thousands of monumental carved gravestones in red volcanic stone, with domed kümbet tombs, one of the largest of its kind.
Read article →Behram Pasha Mosque combines a single-domed prayer hall with Diyarbakır’s two-colour stonework. Its inscription, Sinan attribution and conservation surveys reveal different parts of its history.
Read article →The detached minaret of Şeyh Mutahhar Mosque is both a distinctive structure and a place of public remembrance. Its inscription, architectural survey and earthquake research give a more precise history than claims of unexplained uniqueness.
Read article →The Zinciriye (Sultan Îsa) Medrese of Mardin, a late-14th-century Artuqid religious college — famed for its carved portal and fluted domes high above the Mesopotamian plain.
Read article →Kasımiye combines a courtyard college, prayer spaces and a tomb in Mardin. Its uncertain construction chronology, endowed teaching, water symbolism and modern conservation studies tell a richer story than architectural praise alone.
Read article →Hoşap combines a defended residence, an outer settlement and later decorative remains, preserving several layers of the Mahmudi stronghold near Van.
Read article →Shanidar Cave in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan preserves evidence of Neanderthal lives, deaths and later human activity. Its importance comes from the combination of skeletal remains, carefully studied sediments, stone tools and food residues—notable discoveries that continue to change with new research.
Read article →Bekhal’s cascades near Rawanduz are supplied by springs in fractured limestone. Geological fieldwork and an official tourism guide explain both the water and the resort built around it.
Read article →Gali Ali Beg’s waterfall belongs to a larger landscape of incised rivers and folded mountains in Erbil governorate. Geological studies, banknote records and local interviews explain its physical setting and public memory.
Read article →Saint Thaddeus, or Qara Kelisa, is an Armenian Apostolic monastery in northwestern Iran. Its buildings, episodes of destruction and restoration, and revived pilgrimage connect architectural history with the continuing life of an Armenian sacred place.
Read article →Sherwana Castle, also written Qala Shirwana, is a nineteenth-century Jaf residence on a much older mound at Kalar. Its story connects household authority, changing public uses and the difficult work of conserving a building repeatedly altered and damaged.
Read article →The Kirkuk Citadel, the ancient settlement mound at the heart of Kirkuk — inhabited for thousands of years above the Khasa river, the historic soul of a multi-ethnic city in northern Iraq.
Read article →The Halabja Monument, the memorial in Halabja to the thousands of Kurdish civilians killed in the 1988 chemical attack — a place of mourning, remembrance, and resilience.
Read article →Korek near Soran and Rawanduz has a history of astronomical site surveys and an observatory project, alongside its folded geology and modern mountain resort.
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