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The Assyrian continuity claim deals with the assertion made by the modern Eastern Aramaic speaking ''Pre-Arab'' and ''Pre-Islamic'' Assyrian Christian Semites of northern Iraq, southeast Turkey, northeast Syria and northwest Iran, members of the Assyrian Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Ancient Church of the East, Assyrian Pentecostal Church and Assyrian Evangelical Church, that they are ''at root'' the direct descendants of the Semitic Akkadian inhabitants of ancient Assyria/Athura/Assuristan. These ancestral claims have seen considerable support among prominent historians, Orientalists and Assyriologists such as Simo Parpola, Richard N. Frye, H.W.F. Saggs, Robert D. Biggs, Giorgi Tsereteli, Eden Naby, Mordechai Nisan, J.A. Brinkman and Geoffrey Khan. Nineteenth-century Orientalists such as Austen Henry Layard, Horatio Southgate, George Percy Badger and Hormuzd Rassam (himself an Assyrian) also supported this view. Geneticists such as Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Dr. Joel J. Elias and physical anthropologists such as Carleton S. Coon, together with linguists such as Geoffrey Khan, also clearly endorse this position. Other scholars such as J.F. Coakley, Jean Maurice Fiey, John Joseph and David Wilmshurst have voiced their various degrees of criticism against this claim. The discovery of ancient Assyrian sites in regions mainly inhabited by indisputably indigenous ''pre-Arab'' and ''pre-Kurdish'' Semitic Eastern Aramaic speaking followers of various denominations of Syriac Christianity was one important factor in reinforcing their already extant identification with ancient Assyria. Assyrian national identity has also gained further prominence at the beginnings of Assyrian nationalism and following the Assyrian Genocide, and it was warmly endorsed by a number of leading figures such as Naum Faiq and Freydun Atturaya. Other claims of a Chaldean ethnic ancestry (in other words an attempt to assert a Chaldean continuity linking modern Chaldean Catholics from northern Mesopotamia to the ancient Chaldeans of south eastern Mesopotamia) that have emerged only in very recent years, made by a small and mainly United-States-based minority within the Chaldean Catholic Church, have not been taken seriously by any reputable historians, orientalists, academics, theologians, anthropologists, ethnologists, linguists and archaeologists, as they are not supported in any way by historical, written, archaeological, genetic, linguistic or geographic evidence whatsoever. These people are long indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia (what was Assyria between the 25th century BC and 7th century AD), all are north Mesopotamian former members of the Assyrian Church, and are exactly the same people as the Assyrians, hailing from the same towns and villages, bearing the same family names and speaking the same language. The name ''Chaldean'', extinct for over 2250 years, was only revived and applied to Assyrian converts to Catholicism as recently as 1683 AD by Rome, 130 years after this new Catholic church had originally pointedly been called ''The Church of Assyria and Mosul'' in 1553 AD. Most members of this church still espouse their traditional Assyrian ethnic heritage. == Historical claims == Proponents of continuity point to the fact that Assyria existed as a nation state, and at times a powerful empire, for almost two thousand years, from the 25th Century BC until the end of the 7th Century BC. Furthermore, they note that Assyria (together with its native inhabitants) continued to exist as a distinct geo-political region named "Assyria", including Achaemenid Assyria-Athura (546-324 BC), Seleucid Syria/Assyria (323-150 BC), Parthian Athura (150 BC-114 AD) Assyria Provincia (115-118 AD), second Parthian Athura (119-255 AD), Sassanid Assuristan (256-650 AD) only ceasing to exist as an entity some time after the Arab Islamic invasion and conquest of the second half of the 7th century AD. Between the 2nd century BC and late 3rd century AD a number of small Assyrian states arose in the region, such as Assur, Adiabene, Osroene and the partly Assyrian state of Hatra. They point out that its inhabitants regarded themselves and were regarded by their neighbours as Assyrians throughout these periods, and have always continued to do so afterwards, maintaining a distinct Assyrian culture.〔http://www.christiansofiraq.com/facts.html〕 The question of the synonymity of ''Suria'' vs. ''Assuria'' was already discussed by classical authors: Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, makes a clear reference to the existence of Assyrians and the meaning of the term ''Syrian'', stating that ''Those we call Syrians, are called by themselves and the barbarians, Assyrians''.〔http://www.aina.org/articles/frye.pdf〕 The late 5th century BC Greek historian Thucydides calls the Imperial Aramaic of the Neo Assyrian Empire and Achaemenid Empire the ''Assyrian language''. In the first century ''prior'' to the dawn of Christianity, the geographer Strabo (64 BC-21 AD) confirms Herodotus’ statement by writing that; ''When those who have written histories about the Syrian empire say that the Medes were overthrown by the Persians and the Syrians by the Medes, they mean by the Syrians no other people than those who built the royal palaces in Ninus (Nineveh); and of these Syrians, Ninus was the man who founded Ninus, in ''Aturia'' (Assyria) and his wife, Semiramis, was the woman who succeeded her husband... Now, the city of Ninus was wiped out immediately after the overthrow of the Syrians. It was much greater than Babylon, and was situated in the plain of Aturia.'' Although the mention of Ninus as having founded Assyria is inaccurate, as is the claim that Semiramis was his wife, the salient point in Strabo's statement is the recognition that the Greek term Syria historically meant Assyria.''〔P. 195 (16. I. 2-3) of Strabo, translated by Horace Jones (1917), The Geography of Strabo London : W. Heinemann ; New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons〕 Strabo also lists several of the traditional cities (including Nineveh and 'Calachene' Kalhu) in the Assyrian heartland, which he calls ''Aturia''. Flavius Josephus, writing in the 1st century AD describes the inhabitants of the state of Adiabene as Assyrians. Similarly, Osroene and Hatra were Syriac speaking states, although both had a mixed population. The 2nd-century AD writer and theologian Tatian states clearly that he is an Assyrian, as does the satirist Lucian during the same period. Justinus, the Roman historian wrote in 300 AD: ''The Assyrians, who are afterwards called Syrians, held their empire thirteen hundred years''.〔The Origins of Syrian Nationhood: Histories, Pioneers and Identity Adel Beshara〕 In the 380s AD, the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus during his travels in Upper Mesopotamia with Jovian states that; "Within this circuit is Adiabene, which was formerly called Assyria;" Ammianus Marcellinus also refers to an extant region called Assyria located between the Tigris and Euphrates.〔Ammianus Marcellinus XXIII.6.20 and XXXIII.3.1, from http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/ammianus_23_book23.htm〕 Armenian histories from the 5th century AD refer to the Christians of Northern Mesopotamia as Assyrians, this was a period when northern Mesopotamia was also still called Assuristan.〔Armenian Books V and VI from 420 AD. Todd B. Krause, John A.C. Greppin, and Jonathan Slocum〕 Medieval Arab, Syriac Christian, and Assyrian historians support continuity also; The 10th-century AD Arab scholar Ibn al-Nadim, while describing the books and scripture of many people defines the word Ashuriyun (Arabic for Assyrians) as "a sect of Jesus" inhabiting northern Mesopotamia.〔The Fihrist (Catalog): A Tench Century Survey of Islamic Culture. Abu 'l Faraj Muhammad ibn Ishaq al Nadim. Great Books of the Islamic World, Kazi Publications. Translator: Bayard Dodge.〕 Native Assyrian religion, specific to the indigenous people (including the worship of the Assyrian national god Ashur), remained strong until the 4th century AD, and survived alongside Christianity in small pockets until the 10th century AD, with the final traces disappearing only in the 17th century AD. In the mid 16th century AD Pope Julius III initially named the church of converts from the Assyrian Church to Catholicism as ''The Church of Athura (Assyria) and Mosul'', and its first Patriarch Yohannan Sulaqa as ''Patriarch of the Eastern Assyrians''. This was only later changed to ''The Chaldean Catholic Church''. During the 16th century AD, according to the "Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia", Pope Paul V shall, in a letter to the Persian Shah Abbas I (1571-1629) of 3 November 1612 mention that the Jacobites endorsed an "Assyrian" identity.〔H. Chick: ''A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia.'' London 1939, S. 100.〕 John Selden, writing in 1617 AD suggested that the term ''Syrian'' actually derived from ''Assyrian'' and concluded that those called Syrians were actually Assyrians. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Assyrian continuity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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