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Sulaymaniyah, also called Slemani, is the capital of Sulaymaniyah Governorate in the east of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a city ringed by the Azmar, Goizha and Qaiwan mountains, and it is famous as a centre of Kurdish culture and poetry and for the Amna Suraka museum.
The modern city was founded in 1784 by the Kurdish prince Ibrahim Pasha Baban, who named it after his father Sulayman Pasha, and it was the capital of the Baban principality until 1850. In the early 1920s it was the seat of the short-lived Kingdom of Kurdistan declared by Sheikh Mahmud Barzanji, and the city is linked with poets such as Nali, Piramerd and Abdulla Goran.
Visitors come for the Great Mosque, the Sulaymaniyah Museum, the second largest in Iraq, the Kurd's Heritage Museum on Mawlawi Street and Amna Suraka, then head out to the Paleolithic caves of Hazar Merd, the Qizqapan tomb, ancient rock carvings and the lakes of Dukan and Darbandikhan.
The Great Mosque of Sulaymaniyah, or Sheikh Ahmad Mosque, is the oldest mosque in Sulaymaniyah, founded in 1784 by Ibrahim Pasha Baban with the city itself. Rebuilt in brick by 1968, it holds the tomb of Haji Kaka Ahmad, the shrine of Mahmud Barzanji and the domed tomb of the Baban emirs.
Amna Suraka, the Red Security building, is a museum in Sulaymaniyah in the former northern base of Saddam Hussein's security police, where many prisoners were tortured from 1979 to 1991. Since 2003 it has told their story, with a hall of 182,000 mirror shards for the victims of the Anfal campaign.
The Sulaymaniyah Museum is an archaeological museum in central Sulaymaniyah and the second largest museum in Iraq after the one in Baghdad. Opened in 1961 and on Salim Street since 1980, it holds finds from prehistory to Ottoman times, including the inscribed stones of the Sasanian Paikuli monument.
The Kurd's Heritage Museum is a history museum on Mawlawi Street in central Sulaymaniyah, upstairs in the restored Farah Hotel, the oldest hotel in town. Opened in 2015, it shows Kurdish clothes, jewellery, manuscripts and household objects up to 400 years old, among them rare Torah scrolls.
Hazar Merd Cave is one of a group of Paleolithic caves southwest of Sulaymaniyah, dug by Dorothy Garrod in 1928, whose main cave is known in Kurdish as Ashkawty Tarik, the Dark Cave. Its lofty chamber held thick Mousterian layers with hearths, flint tools and bones, and it looks out over a valley.
Qyzqapan is an ancient rock-cut tomb in a cliff in Sulaymaniyah Governorate near the Paleolithic cave of Zarzi, its entrance about 8 metres above the ground. Its three chambers are generally thought to be the work of the Medes, and some scholars link it with the Median king Cyaxares.
The Naram-Sin Rock Relief at Darband-i Gawr is an ancient carving high on Qaradagh Mountain in the countryside of Sulaymaniyah, dated to about 2200 BC. It is linked with Naram-Sin of Akkad, grandson of Sargon and the first Mesopotamian king known to have claimed divinity for himself.
The Darband-i Bazian Church is the ruin of a Christian church or monastery at the Bazian Pass west of Sulaymaniyah, dating from the Sasanian to early Islamic period, between the 3rd and 7th centuries. Parts of its stone walls, fortified enclosure, steps and raised bema still stand.
Lake Dukan is a large reservoir in Sulaymaniyah Governorate near the town of Ranya, formed on the Little Zab by the Dukan Dam, built from 1954 to 1959. The concrete arch dam is 116.5 metres high, and before the valley flooded, archaeologists recorded some 40 ancient sites on the Ranya Plain.
Darbandikhan Lake is the reservoir of the Darbandikhan Dam on the Diyala River in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, near the town of Darbandikhan and the border with Diyala Governorate. The embankment dam was built from 1956 to 1961 for irrigation, flood control, hydroelectric power and recreation.
Qalatga Darband is an ancient town overlooking Lake Dukan in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, dated to the late Hellenistic or early Parthian period. First spotted on 1960s Corona satellite photos, it has been dug by the British Museum since 2016, uncovering the stone walls of large buildings.
Rabana-Merquly is a group of ancient sites at Qarachatan in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, with two fortified settlements on mountain slopes and rock reliefs from the Middle Parthian period, around 50 to 150 AD. Researchers have suggested it may be the lost city of Natounia, known only from coins.
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Log in to add photosPhoto: Azada.suleman, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
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Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
Photo: Levi Clancy, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
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Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
