Ancient empire.
Living people.

12 February 2015

UN action against the trade in looted Iraqi and Syrian heritage

The UN Security Council adopted resolution 2199, addressing terrorist financing and the illicit trade in cultural property from Iraq and Syria. The measure connected the protection of archaeological collections with the wider response to conflict.

This is the date of the Security Council action, not a date for every destruction or theft of an Iraqi artefact.

7 March 2021

Pope Francis remembered war victims in Mosul

During his visit to Iraq, Pope Francis prayed for war victims in Mosul’s Church Square. His address discussed displacement, the loss of Christian communities and the importance of rebuilding relationships among the city’s residents.

11 March 2010

Sweden’s parliament voted on genocide recognition

The Riksdag approved a motion calling for Swedish recognition of the 1915 genocide affecting Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and Pontic Greeks. The parliamentary record identifies both the adopted decision and its date.

The entry describes a parliamentary vote. It does not treat that vote as proof of a later Swedish government policy or merge the named communities into one identity.

24 March 2015

Armenia’s National Assembly condemned the Greek and Assyrian genocide

Armenia’s National Assembly adopted a declaration condemning the genocide of Greeks and Assyrians carried out by Ottoman Turkey. The legislature’s published text provides a direct record of the declaration and its adoption date.

This anniversary concerns the adoption of a declaration in 2015, not a precise day for the earlier genocide.

24 March 2017

The UN adopted a resolution on heritage during armed conflict

The Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 2347 on cultural heritage in armed conflict. Its response to destruction and trafficking placed endangered archaeological sites, religious buildings and collections within an international protection framework.

This is a wider international heritage milestone relevant to Assyrian sites, not a resolution exclusively about Assyrians.

28 March 2015

UNESCO launched Unite4Heritage in Baghdad

UNESCO launched Unite4Heritage at Baghdad University, inviting young people to oppose the destruction and pillage of cultural heritage. The campaign responded to attacks on Iraqi collections and sites, including Nimrud and Mosul Museum.

5 June 708

Jacob of Edessa died at Tell Ada

Jacob of Edessa died after returning to Tell Ada to collect his books and students. His work in grammar, biblical revision and translation connected Syriac learning with Greek scholarship and influenced later generations of writers.

The historical date is reproduced as given by the specialist biography; it is not silently converted to a proleptic Gregorian date. His birth remains approximate.

23 June 1984

A Catholic–Syriac Orthodox joint declaration

Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Ignatius Zakka I Iwas issued a joint declaration in Rome. They affirmed shared Christological faith and discussed practical cooperation while acknowledging obstacles to full communion between their churches.

The Syriac Orthodox Church and the Assyrian Church of the East are distinct churches. The declaration is not a church merger or a statement assigning ethnic identity to their members.

27 July 1918

Toma Audo’s life and scholarship were cut short

Toma Audo, bishop of Urmia and Salamas, was killed during the First World War persecutions. His work included a Syriac lexicon, a Neo-Aramaic grammar and translations that remain important to the history of language scholarship.

The date is for Audo’s death, not a single date for all First World War violence in Urmia or the wider region.

16 September 1910

Remembering archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam

The British Museum dates Hormuzd Rassam’s death to 16 September 1910. Born in Mosul, he worked at Nineveh, Nimrud, Ashur and other sites. His career is inseparable from both Assyrian archaeology and the history of collecting under empire.

Excavation, export and museum ownership are different historical questions; this anniversary does not treat imperial collecting as uncomplicated rescue.

27 October 1971

Paul VI and Ignatius Jacoub III issued a common declaration

Pope Paul VI and the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Jacoub III concluded their meeting with a common declaration. They described shared faith, encouraged further study and appealed for peace, justice and religious freedom.

This concerns relations between two churches, not a merger or a universal statement about the ethnicity of Syriac Orthodox Christians.

8 November 2018

The British Museum opened its Ashurbanipal exhibition

The exhibition I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria opened in London. Its focus on Nineveh, royal imagery and learned collections offers a modern reception-history route into the evidence for the Neo-Assyrian empire.

This is a modern exhibition anniversary, not the date of Ashurbanipal’s birth, accession or death. Its public title reflects royal ideology, not a neutral historical ranking.

11 November 1994

The Catholic and Assyrian churches signed a Christological declaration

Pope John Paul II and Mar Dinkha IV signed a common Christological declaration at Saint Peter’s. The document affirmed shared faith and established a joint theological dialogue, while explicitly acknowledging that full ecclesial communion had not yet been restored.

A doctrinal declaration and dialogue process should not be described as the merger of the churches.

3 December 1872

George Smith publicly presented the Gilgamesh flood account

George Smith read the flood narrative from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Society of Biblical Archaeology. His presentation brought a text recovered from Nineveh to wider public attention and became a landmark in the modern study of cuneiform literature.

The lecture is a nineteenth-century event. It does not date the ancient composition, establish the flood narrative as an eyewitness account or make the Babylonian epic exclusively Assyrian.