Questions related to the ancient history of Kurdistan frequently arise in contemporary debates, including the claim that the Kurds are a newcomer population to the region, or that vast parts of Kurdistan were originally an “Assyrian land.” To evaluate these views, it is necessary to return to what archaeology and ancient texts reveal, far from projecting modern political identities onto a world that was entirely different.
Before delving into the topic, it should be pointed out that this article does not aim to enter into the contemporary dispute regarding the historical relationship between modern Assyrians who speak Syriac-Aramaic dialects and the ancient Assyrians who used the Akkadian language in writing, as this is a broad discussion among scholars of history and identity.
Archaeological evidence indicates that Iraqi Kurdistan was among the regions that witnessed the early beginnings of human settlement and agriculture in the ancient Near East. Early agricultural villages appeared there alongside other areas of the Fertile Crescent, and human settlement continued across successive historical stages from prehistoric times through to later historical eras.
The names of the groups that inhabited Kurdistan before the invention of writing are unknown, but with the emergence of cuneiform texts, historical sources began to mention the peoples of northern Mesopotamia, who were known in a number of texts under the name Subartu. Multiple groups inhabited this region, most prominently the Hurrians, the Gutians, and the Lullubis, who formed a fundamental part of the history of Kurdistan and Upper Mesopotamia.[1]
These peoples were a fundamental part of the history of Mesopotamia and Kurdistan, and they did not disappear as a result of the military campaigns conducted by southern states, such as Sumer and Akkad, or due to the later expansion of the Assyrian state. For example, and by no means exhaustively, the name of the Gutians recurs in sources until the third century BCE,[2] and they played a decisive role alongside the Persians in the capture of Babylon in 539 BCE,[3] approximately 70 years after the Medes and the Chaldeans destroyed the Assyrian Empire, and after Kurdistan entered the sphere of influence of the Medes, who are considered in modern studies to be among the ancient Iranian peoples linked to the history of the ancestors of the Kurds,[4] and whose mention in historical sources did not cease even after the Arab-Islamic conquest of Kurdistan.[5]
The results of Ancient DNA studies align with this picture, as they indicate population continuity in the northern Fertile Crescent since prehistoric times, showing that the Kurds retain an important part of the genetic legacy of the ancient inhabitants. These results do not support the hypothesis of comprehensive population replacement or the arrival of a new population that entirely replaced the previous inhabitants during historical times.[6] Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that genetics does not determine national identity; rather, its role is limited to revealing patterns of continuity and population admixture, whereas identity is also built upon language, culture, and history. Ancient history does not always proceed on the basis of replacing one people with another; rather, we often witness an overlap between local populations and the political powers that control the region.
Hence arises the necessity of distinguishing between political control and demographic presence. Ancient empires expanded through military force and imposed their influence over vast territories, but that does not mean that the inhabitants of those territories all came to belong to the identity of the ruling empire. This principle applies to the city of Erbil, which is considered one of the most controversial examples. Some contemporary nationalist discourses describe it as a purely Assyrian city based on the appearance of its name in Assyrian texts in the form Arbailu, and its important religious status during the Neo-Assyrian period.
However, archaeological and historical evidence presents a more complex picture. Erbil is far older than the establishment of the Assyrian state, as the history of settlement there dates back to the sixth millennium BCE at the very least. The name of the city also appeared in the Ebla archives (Tell Mardikh in Syria) around 2400 BCE in the forms Irbilum and Urbilum, approximately a thousand years before Assyria’s expansion in northern Mesopotamia. Its name also appears in the inscription of the Gutian king Erridu-pizir, whose ruler at that time was a Hurrian.[7] When the city came under Assyrian control, the Assyrian form “Arbailu” was used, which is consistent with the Assyrian administration’s adoption of Akkadian forms for the names of many local cities, just as it renamed cities or gave them new names for political purposes in many cases—an issue mentioned by a number of specialized scholars, including Karen Radner.[8]
If we return to the beginnings of the Assyrian state itself, most specialists agree that the oldest center of the Assyrians was the city of Assur (modern Qal’at Shergat), located about 125 km south of Mosul. Numerous studies indicate that the city was known as Baltil before it later became the main center for the Assyrians,[9] and a number of researchers suggest that the roots of the earlier city were linked to the Hurrian population.[10]
The same applies to Nineveh, which became the main political capital of the Assyrian Empire starting from the late eighth century BCE. This city was an important center in the Hurrian cultural milieu, as it was the center of a Hurrian kingdom until the end of the third millennium BCE, and its Hurrian ruler was named Tish-atal.[11]
It is important to distinguish between political control and demographic belonging. In the first millennium BCE, the Assyrians established a vast empire extending from the Zagros Mountains to Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and their influence reached Cyprus.[12] However, no one today claims that Egypt or Cyprus became Assyrian due to their temporary subjection to the Assyrian Empire.
Similarly, during the second millennium BCE, the Mitannians founded a large empire extending from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea, and the city of Assur itself was one of the important cities within this empire.[13] Assyrian art and religion during the Middle Assyrian period (particularly the fourteenth century) were also clearly influenced by Mitannian heritage. Nevertheless, no one claims that the land of Assur was “Mitannian” in the modern national sense, because political influence does not necessarily alter the historical identity of regions.
The same principle applies to the modern era. The post-World War I agreements annexed vast parts of Kurdistan to Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran, but this did not make Kurdistan Arab, Turkish, or Persian, because political borders do not erase history nor do they change the identity of the population.
This does not mean claiming the existence of racial purity or a demographic continuity free from change. The region of Kurdistan, like the rest of the Near East, has witnessed over thousands of years—and continues to witness—migrations, wars, displacements, and demographic mixing, all of which left their mark on its demographic composition. However, despite these facts, historical evidence indicates the continuation of a number of ancient groups in Kurdistan, with the evolution of their names, languages, and identities over time, until the emergence of the modern designation for the Kurds.
Relying on a period of political control to deny a people’s historical belonging to their homeland does not align with the historical method. If this logic were applied to other regions, Egypt would have to be considered a Roman land, or the Levant a Crusader land—conclusions that no historian accepts.
Respecting the history of all the peoples of the region, across their differing nationalities, languages, religions, and beliefs, requires moving away from monopolizing the past or excluding others, and recognizing that Mesopotamia was, over thousands of years, a home to multiple peoples who coexisted and interacted with one another, and upon which different states and empires succeeded each other, with each of those peoples contributing to building the region’s history and shaping its civilization legacy.
Sources and References:
Altaweel, Mark (2025). «The Sand Deposit Underneath the Ishtar Temple in Assur, Iraq: Origin and Implications for the Foundation of the Goddess’s Cult and Sanctuary». Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 69..
Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio/ Gomez-Casado, Eduardo/ Martinez-Laso , Jorge (2002). Population Genetic Relationships between Mediterranean Populations Determined by HLA Allele Distribution and a Historic Perspective». Tissue Antigens 60, 111-121.
Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio et al. (2017). Genetic HLA Study of Kurds in Iraq, Iran and Tbilisi (Caucasus, Georgia): Relatedness and Medical Implications, PLOS ONE 12, no. 1.
Debevoise, Neilson C. (1938). A Political History of Parthia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hennerbichler, Ferdinand (2012). The Origin of the Kurds». Advances in Anthropology 22, 64-79.
MacGinnis, John (2014). A City from the Dawn of History: Erbil in the Cuneiform Sources.
MacGinnis, John, Dirk Wicke, and Tina Greenfield, eds. (2016). The Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Roaf, Michael (1990). Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. Oxford: Andromeda.
Ahmed, Kozad Mohamed (2020). “Between the Plain and the Mountain: The Truth in Clarifying What Is Semitic and Non-Semitic in Ancient Kurdistan: A Study in Language and Art.” Journal of the University of Duhok 24, No. 1. The article can be read online via:
Ahmed, Kozad Mohamed. “History of Kurdistan Prior to the Aryans.” In Great Islamic Encyclopaedia. Tehran: Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia. The article can be read online via:
Haj Darwish, Nidal Mahmoud (2021). “The Medes and the Extent of Their Empire.” Zîn Journal, No. 12. Sulaymaniyah: Zîn Foundation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The article can be read online via:
Haj Darwish, Nidal Mahmoud (2022). The Origin of the Kurds: A Study in the Research of the German Orientalist Theodor Nöldeke: Kardo and the Kurds. The study can be read online via:
Geoarchaeological analyses of the foundations of the Ishtar Temple in Assur revealed the use of sand transported from the Zagros region at the beginning of the third millennium BCE, which may reflect an overlap between southern religious building traditions and the cultural traditions of northern Mesopotamia, including the Hurrian sphere. See:
Altaweel et al 2025.
[11] Ahmed 2021.
[12] See for example in: MacGinnis/Wicke/Greenfield (eds.) 2016.
[13] Haj Darwish 2022.
Source: medaratkurd.com
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