Editing Kurdistan (section)

=== Ancient history ===
{{Main|Hurrians|Gutian people|Mannaeans|Corduene|Assyria|Armenians}}
{{multiple image
|total_width = 500
|image1      = Alexander den stores rike, Nordisk familjebok.jpg
|caption1    = Ancient Kurdistan as Kard-uchi, during [[Alexander the Great]]'s Empire, 4th century BCE
|image2      = Near East ancient map.jpg
|caption2    = 19th-century map showing the location of the Kingdom of Corduene in 60 BCE
}}
Various groups, among them the [[Gutian people|Guti]], [[Hurrians]], Mannai ([[Mannaeans]]), and [[Armenians]], lived in this region in antiquity.<ref>[http://kurdistanica.com/english/history/articles-his/his-articles-02.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080501191513/http://kurdistanica.com/english/history/articles-his/his-articles-02.html|date=1 May 2008}}</ref> The original Mannaean homeland was situated east and south of the [[Lake Urmia]], roughly centered around modern-day [[Mahabad]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9050086 |title=Mahabad |encyclopedia=Britannica Online Encyclopedia |access-date=13 May 2011}}</ref> The region came under [[Achaemenid Empire|Persian]] rule during the reign of [[Cyrus the Great]] and [[Darius I]].

The Kingdom of [[Corduene]], which emerged from the declining [[Seleucid Empire]], was located to the south and south-east of [[Lake Van]] between Persia and Mesopotamia and ruled northern Mesopotamia and southeastern [[Anatolia]] from 189 BC to AD 384 as vassals of the vying [[Parthian Empire|Parthian]] and [[Roman Empire|Roman]] empires. Corduene became a [[vassal]] state of the [[Roman Republic]] in 66 BC and remained allied with the Romans until AD 384. After 66 BC, it passed another 5 times between [[Ancient Rome|Rome]] and Persia<!-- Do not link to the disambiguation page, "Persian Empire"; link to a specific iteration of this topic -->. Corduene was situated to the east of [[Tigranocerta]], that is, to the east and south of present-day [[Diyarbakır]] in south-eastern Turkey.

Some historians have correlated a connection between Corduene with the modern names of Kurds and Kurdistan;<ref name="A.D. Lee, 1991 pp. 366–374" /><ref>Rawlinson, George, ''The Seven Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern World, Vol. 7'', 1871. [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16167 (copy at Project Gutenberg)]</ref><ref>Revue des études arméniennes, vol. 21, 1988–1989, p. 281, by Société des études armeniennes, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Published by Imprimerie nationale, P. Geuthner, 1989.</ref> ''T. A. Sinclair'' and other scholars have dismissed this identification as false,<ref>T. A. Sinclair, "Eastern Turkey, an Architectural and Archaeological Survey", 1989, volume 3, page 360.</ref><ref>Mark Marciak ''Sophene, Gordyene, and Adiabene: Three Regna Minora of Northern Mesopotamia Between East and West'', 2017. [https://books.google.com/books?id=hwEtDwAAQBAJ&dq=karduchoi&pg=PA204] pp. 220-221</ref><ref>Victoria Arekelova, Garnik S. Asatryan ''Prolegomena To The Study Of The Kurds'', Iran and The Caucasus, 2009 [https://www.academia.edu/8625114/GARNIK_ASATRIAN._PROLEGOMENA_TO_THE_STUDY_OF_THE_KURDS] pp. 82</ref><ref name="I. Gershevitch, 1968. p. 237">I. Gershevitch, ''The Cambridge history of Iran: The Saljuq and Mongol periods'', Vol. 5, 762 pp., Cambridge University Press, 1968. (see p. 237 for "Rawwadids")</ref> while a common association is asserted in the ''[[Columbia Encyclopedia]]''.<ref>[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurds.aspx Kurds], ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Sixth Edition, 2001.</ref>

Some of the ancient districts of Kurdistan and their corresponding modern names:<ref>J. Bell, ''A System of Geography. Popular and Scientific (A Physical, Political, and Statistical Account of the World and Its Various Divisions)'', pp. 133–4, Vol. IV, Fullarton & Co., Glasgow, 1832.</ref>
# Corduene or Gordyene ([[Siirt]], [[Bitlis]] and [[Şırnak]])
# [[Sophene]] (Diyarbakır)
# Zabdicene or Bezabde (''Gozarto d'Qardu'' or ''Jazirat Ibn'' or [[Cizre]])
# Basenia ([[Doğubeyazıt|Bayazid]])
# [[Moxoene]] ([[Muş]])
# Nephercerta (''Miyafarkin'')
# Artemita ([[Van Province|Van]])

One of the earliest records of the phrase ''land of the Kurds'' is found in an [[Assyrian people|Assyrian]] Christian document of [[late antiquity]], describing the stories of Assyrian saints of the [[Middle East]], such as [[Abdisho (died 345)|Abdisho]]. When the [[Sasanian]] [[Marzban]] asked Mar Abdisho about his place of origin, he replied that according to his parents, they were originally from ''Hazza,'' a village in [[Assyria]]. However, they were later driven out of Hazza by [[Assyrian paganism|pagans]], and settled in ''Tamanon,'' which according to Abdisho was in the ''land of the Kurds.'' Tamanon lies just north of the modern Iraq-Turkey border, while Hazza is 12&nbsp;km southwest of modern [[Erbil]]. In another passage in the same document, the region of the [[Khabur (Tigris)|Khabur River]] is also identified as ''land of the Kurds''.<ref>J. T. Walker, ''The Legend of [[Mar Qardagh]]: Narrative and Christian Heroism in Late Antique Iraq'' (368 pages), University of California Press, {{ISBN|0-520-24578-4}}, 2006, pp. 26, 52, 108.</ref> According to [[Al-Muqaddasi]] and [[Yaqut al-Hamawi]], Tamanon was located on the south-western or southern slopes of [[Mount Judi]] and south of [[Cizre]].<ref>T. A. Sinclair, "Eastern Turkey, an Architectural and Archaeological Survey", Vol. 3, Pindar Press, {{ISBN|978-1-904597-76-6}}, 1989, page 337.</ref> Other geographical references to the Kurds in [[Syriac Orthodox Church|Syriac]] sources appear in [[Zuqnin Chronicle|Zuqnin]] chronicle, writings of [[Michael the Syrian]] and [[Bar Hebraeus]]. They mention the mountains of Qardu, city of Qardu and country of Qardawaye.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mouawad |first=R. J. |date=1992 |title=The Kurds and Their Christian Neighbors: The Case of Orthodox Syriacs |journal=Parole de l'Orient |volume=XVII |pages=127–141 }}</ref>