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?"
A century after the National Museum of Denmark amassed clay tablets from the ancient Near East, researchers have fully analyzed and digitized them, revealing texts from anti-witchcraft rituals for Assyrian kings to beer receipts and dynastic lists mentioning Gilgamesh.
A farmer in Baghdida is growing a wide range of pepper varieties inside plastic greenhouses, part of an agricultural effort that community leaders say helps Nineveh Plain residents stay on their land.
Many Assyrian inventions were so advanced that we make use of them today in one way or another. People from the 21st century might not expect that daily life in such an ancient culture would include visiting a library, going to the doctor, or unlocking a storehouse with a key.
A century after the National Museum of Denmark amassed clay tablets from the ancient Near East, researchers have fully analyzed and digitized them, revealing texts from anti-witchcraft rituals for Assyrian kings to beer receipts and dynastic lists mentioning Gilgamesh.
Assyrian-American entrepreneur Merian Odesho has transformed a personal challenge into a global success story, founding the rapidly growing beauty brand Bounce Curl, now recognised as a leading name in curly hair care worldwide.
Two Swedish-Assyrian students in Sweden have captured national attention after winning a prestigious young scientist competition with an unconventional yet scientifically grounded project exploring the effects of rice water on hair health.
Deniz Utlu
