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The ancient city of Gezer has been an important site since the Bronze Age, because it sat along the Way of the Sea, or the Via Maris, an ancient trade route that connected Egypt, Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The city was ruled over many centuries by Canaanites, Egyptians and Assyrians, and Biblical accounts from roughly the 10th century describe an Egyptian pharaoh giving the city to King Solomon as a wedding gift after marrying his daughter. .... The site has been excavated for a century, and most of the excavations so far date to the the 10th through eighth centuries...

According to reports from Syria and also the Turkish press, ISIS has bombed two churches in Syria, the St. Odisho Assyrian Church in Tel Tal and the St. Rita Tilel Armenian Church in Aleppo. The churches were bombed yesterday. Located on the Khabur river in the Hasaka province in Syria, Tel Tal is one of the 35 Assyrian villages that was attacked by ISIS on February 23. ISIS captured nearly 300 Assyrians in those attacks and subsequently released 23, all from the village of Tel Goran. The remaining Assyrians are still being held captive. The entire Assyrian population of these...

Syria Deeply spoke with displaced Assyrian families who fled to Beirut after Jabhat al Nusra and ISIS arrived in their hometown of al-Hasakah. Many of them have relatives presently held hostage by ISIS.Beirut, Lebanon – “We are searching for the quickest way to go to Europe or Canada, maybe America,” said Jack Zayya, an Assyrian Christian refugee from Syria who arrived in Beirut two months ago. Standing in front of a local Assyrian church, he recalled the difficult journey from his hometown of al-Hasakah, situated in northeastern Syria and home to many Christians and Kurds.Before the war, Zayya led a...

A Syrian Christian fighter has beheaded an Islamic State group (IS) militant to avenge people "executed" by the jihadists in northeastern Syria, a monitor said on Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the incident took place on Thursday in Hasakeh province, where IS holds large areas of the countryside. According to the monitor, the Christian fighter, a member of the minority Assyrian community, found the jihadist in the local village of Tal Shamiram. "He took him prisoner and when he found out he was a member of IS, the Assyrian fighter beheaded him in revenge for abuses committed...

The Assyrian monks at Saint Matthew’s Monastery in the Nineveh Plains told the world they will not leave, even though the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) creeps closer to their home. The monks regularly hear battles down the mountain.

In its ongoing rampage in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State is now using its Christian hostages as human shields in military confrontations, according to a source within the Assyrian leadership. ISIS militants have transported large groups of Christian captives to areas of intense fighting against Kurdish and Christian militias, as they continue to battle for strategic areas along the northeastern Syrian border, according to state-run media. These Christians are now being used to defend the Islamic State against any confrontations in these territories.

The Islamic State jihadist group began bulldozing the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq on Thursday, the tourism and antiquities ministry said. IS "assaulted the historic city of Nimrud and bulldozed it with heavy vehicles," the ministry said on an official Facebook page, the group's latest attack on the country's historical heritage.

<p>Some Muslim families are now feeling the pinch in Sweden, as Assyrian Christian youths wrongfully attack Muslims in their areas, with very hurtfull language. Their conduct is condemnable, but it should be noted however, that no matter how wrong their actions are, and indeed they are, it’s prudent to note that they’re only responding in the manner in which the Muslim community treated them when they were living in Islamic lands.</p>

BAKUFA, Iraq (AP) — The flag of an Iraqi Christian minority party is hoisted high over the village of Bakufa in northern Iraq, less than a month after Islamic State militants were pushed out and the extremists' black banner was taken down. The predominantly Christian Assyrian hamlet of 95 houses that once had about 500 people, located some 390 kilometers (243 miles) north of Baghdad, was overrun by the Islamic State group during its shocking blitz this summer, along with 22 other villages nearby. In a counter-offensive, the Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters swept in from the north, battling the Islamic...

While the history of civilization is being demolished by war and religious zealots in the rest of Iraq, in the Kurdistan Region archeologists are marveling at a stunning discovery: the remains of a long-lost temple from the biblical kingdom of Urartu, dating back to the 9th century BC. Kurdish archaeologist Dlshad Marf Zamua, who has studied the columns and other artifacts at the find, told Rudaw these were unearthed piecemeal over the past four decades by villagers going about their lives, digging for cultivation or construction. But only recently, after the discovery of life-size human statues and the unearthed columns,...

Captain Firaz Jacob knows he may well be mounting a last stand at the frontiers of the Christian settlement of Bartella on the outskirts of Mosul. Less than a mile down the road are the jihadists of Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, and the portly, middle-aged Mr Jacob is aware that his home-grown militia are outnumbered.

According to Professor Giovanni Pettinato of the University of Rome, a rock crystal lens, currently on show in the British museum, could rewrite the history of science. He believes that it could explain why the ancient Assyrians knew so much about astronomy. It is a theory many scientists might be prepared to accept, but the idea that the rock crystal was part of a telescope is something else. To get from a lens to a telescope, they say, is an enormous leap. Professor Pettinato counters by asking for an explanation of how the ancient Assyrians regarded the planet Saturn as...

CHICAGO – It was a monumental project with modest beginnings: a small group of scholars and some index cards. The plan was to explore a long-dead language that would reveal an ancient world of chariots and concubines, royal decrees and diaries — and omens that came from the heavens and sheep livers. The year: 1921. The place: The University of Chicago. The project: Assembling an Assyrian dictionary based on words recorded on clay or stone tablets unearthed from ruins in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, written in a language that hadn't been uttered for more than 2,000 years. The scholars...

Meticulous ancient notetakers have given archaeologists a glimpse of what life was like 3,000 years ago in the Assyrian Empire, which controlled much of the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. Clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform, an ancient script once common in the Middle East, were unearthed in summer 2009 in an ancient palace in present-day southeastern Turkey... A team led by University of Akron archaeologist Timothy Matney has been excavating the massive mud brick palace, once inhabited by the governor of the empire's Tushhan Province, for more than a decade. The palace is located in Ziyaret...

Bishop Mar Bawai Soro San Jose, CA., Jun 5, 2008 / 03:44 am (CNA).- Last month, Bishop Mar Bawai Soro and nearly 1,000 Assyrian Christian families were received into communion with the Chaldean Catholic Church in California.  Bishop Bawai explained the process to CNA, and expressed his hope that other Assyrian churches will also consider uniting with the Catholic Church.  The Assyrian Church, centered in modern-day Iraq, dates back to the earliest days of Christianity.  Around the fifth century, the Assyrian followers began to embrace the teachings of Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople whose doctrines were condemned by the Council...

San Jose, CA., May 18, 2008 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- One week ago today leaders of the Chaldean Catholic Church in California formally received into communion a bishop of the Assyrian Apostolic Church of the East, his clergy, and about 3,000 Assyrian Christians. The Assyrian Church, centered in modern-day Iraq, dates back to the earliest days of Christianity.  According to the California Catholic Daily, the church eventually embraced the teachings of Nestorius, the fifth-century Archbishop of Constantinople whose doctrines were condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431.  Beginning in the sixteenth century, large numbers of Nestorian Assyrians came...

BAGHDAD - An Assyrian Orthodox priest was killed in a drive-by shooting Saturday in Baghdad, police and an assistant said, the latest attack against Iraq's Christian minority. The priest, Youssef Adel, was shot by gunmen who drove up in a car and opened fire as he was opening the gate of his house near the St. Peter and Paul church where he presided, an assistant said. Christians have frequently been caught up in the violence or been targeted in this predominantly Muslim country. The body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, one of Iraq's most senior Chaldean Catholic clerics, was found...

A 5-year-old Iraqi girl gives a thumbs-up at the Assyrian Christian Christmas Party attended by the 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division and Coalition forces, Dec. 15 in Kirkuk. Soldiers with the 2414 Logistical Transition Team who are training the 2-4 IA logistics at Iraqi Army Base K-1 brought presents donated by employers, friends and family of Pennsylvania National Guardsmen, members of the LTT team. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Margaret C. Nelson, 115th MPAD. KIRKUK — The 2nd Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army (IA) Division invited Coalition forces to a Christmas Party at an Assyrian Christian School in Kirkuk,...

Christian America may soon be the death of Iraqi Christians. Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination. The irony is extraordinary: America, a nation with deep Christian roots, has inadvertently loosed the vicious forces bent on destroying Iraqi Christians. Persecuted by Islamic extremists and targeted for their frequent cooperation with occupation authorities, Christians have ever less hope in a nation that has fallen into violent chaos. The Assyrian International News Agency has released a new...

Austrian Assyriologist Michael Jursa recently discovered the financial record of a donation made a Babylonian chief official, Nebo-Sarsekim. The find may lend new credibility to the Book of Jeremiah, which cites Nebo-Sarsekim as a participant in the siege of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The tablet is dated to 595 B.C., which was during the reign of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II. Coming to the throne in 604 B.C., he marched to Egypt shortly thereafter, and initiated an epoch of fighting between the two nations. During the ongoing struggle, Jerusalem was captured in 597, and again in 587-6 B.C. It was...