How do you narrate Europe when utopias collapse? Deniz Utlu traces paths of migration, memory, and myth—from Mesopotamia to Stockholm, from Pergamon to Södertälje. A poetic essay on language, belonging, and the invisible maps of memory.
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"I recall a trip in the 2000s to Mesopotamia, to Mardin and Midyat, together with my mother and in the company of a journalist and family friend who had written two reports – one about Yazidis, the other about Assyrians. I remember that he travelled to Sweden for the Assyrians. He had written both pieces as a young journalist in the 1980s, at a time when a large wave of Assyrians emigrated from their northern Mesopotamian homeland in Turkey to Sweden, Germany and the US, and had published these pieces in a slim book, which he gave me thirty years later during that trip. I take it out now: Yezidiler ve Süryanileri [i] by Murat Öztemir – a tall man, whose eyes, always half-closed due to a sensitivity in his eyelids, never miss a thing. That’s how I remember him. And that he smiles impishly, even when recounting something painful. His report on the Assyrians begins with a journey to Sweden, because this is where a fragment of Mesopotamia had found its way. What has become of this fragment nearly half a century later?"
The results of a study show that scribes did not always refine their clay, barely used fire to harden the texts, and that tablets made in the workshop coexisted with others brought from outside.
Matti Matti grew up in Ankawa, an Assyrian area outside of Erbil. He’s witnessed the town change dramatically as Iraq’s Assyrian population has collapsed.
The Assyrian Foundation of America (AFA) has announced a five-year financial commitment to the Assyrian Studies Association (ASA), pledging $30,000 annually through 2031 in support of the organization's academic and cultural work.
As investment in Tur Abdin continues, ensuring quality and trust in the construction sector is becoming an increasingly important concern for Assyrians seeking to preserve and rebuild their historic villages.
The results of a study show that scribes did not always refine their clay, barely used fire to harden the texts, and that tablets made in the workshop coexisted with others brought from outside.
Deniz Utlu
