By Peter Kenny
Christian religious and political leaders in Iraq have urged Prime Minister Ali Faleh Al-Zaidi to guarantee genuine political partnership for the community, enforce state authority, and improve security for the dwindling minority in the Mid-East country.
Medyad, Turkey -- A UNESCO field mission has visited a series of historic Assyrian churches and monasteries in Tur Abdin as part of ongoing work to assess the region's cultural heritage. The delegation was accompanied by Mor Timotheos Samuel Aktas, Metropolitan of Tur Abdin and Mor Gabriel Monastery, and Kuryakos Ergün, chairman of the Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation.
By Leman Altuntaş
The ancient Lydians are remembered for creating the world's first coins and for the legendary wealth of King Croesus. But at Sardis, their capital in western Türkiye, archaeologists are investigating a different achievement: a massive, 2,600-year-old defensive wall that may preserve evidence of architectural knowledge brought from ancient Mesopotamia.
By Andrew McNamara May
On Sept. 9, Oakland University launched its new Chaldean Language and Medical Terminology Program in the Ambassador Rooms of the Oakland Center. The program is aimed at preserving the language while also ensuring that the dense Chaldean-speaking population in Southeast Michigan is accessible, in and out of the hospital room.
By Stephanie Sokol
Scientists have finally read a letter penned 4,000 years ago. Why was there such a long wait? They had to view it without cracking its secure clay envelope. When scientists handle cuneiform documents from Ancient Assyrian and Babylonian times, extra care must be taken to preserve all parts of the artifact from the seal on the outside of the labeled clay envelope to the document within.
Sorya, Iraq -- The modern history of the Assyrians is overshadowed by massacres and genocides. After the Turkish Genocide of 1915 and the Simmele Massacre, the Assyrian people were subjected to another massacre on 16 September 1969, in the remote village of Sorya, in the Zakho district of Nohadra (Duhok) Governorate, in what is now the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.