Kirkuk

Kirkuk is a city in Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate, located north of Baghdad. The city is home to a diverse population of Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs. Kirkuk sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Citadel which sits near the Khasa River. Kirkuk was proclaimed the "capital of Iraqi culture" in 2010. It is described by the Kurdish leader and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani as “the Jerusalem of Kurdistan”, while it is seen by the Turkmen activist Fatih Salah as the cultural and historical capital of Iraqi Turkmens. The government of Iraq states that Kirkuk represents a small version of Iraq due to its diverse population, and that the city is a model for coexistence in the country. Etymology The ancient name of Kirkuk was the Hurrian Arrapha During the Parthian era, a Korkura/Corcura is mentioned by Ptolemy, which is believed to refer either to Kirkuk or to the site of Baba Gurgur from the city. Since the Seleucid Empire it was known as karkā d-ḇeṯ slōḵ, which means 'Citadel of the House of Seleucid' in Mesopotamian Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent in that era. The region around Kirkuk was known historically in the Eastern Aramaic and Syriac Assyrian sources as "Beth Garmai". The name "Beth Garmai" or "Beth Garme" may be of Syriac origin which meaning "the house of bones", which is thought to be a reference to bones of slaughtered Achaemenids after a decisive battle between Alexander the Great and Darius III on the plains between the Upper Zab and Diyala river. It was one of a number of independent Neo-Assyrian states which flourished during the Parthian empire (150 BC–226 AD).