Past Watch Site

Settled more than 8.000 years ago, Erbil Citadel is one of the longest continuously inhabited sites in the world. The citadel, which rises some 25 meters above a surrounding City of 750,000 inhabitants, boasts a plentiful supply of groundwater, which sustained Erbil's population through millennia of enemy sieges. Alexander the Great defeated the Persian king Darius III on Erbil's surrounding plains in 331 B.C., in one of the most famous battles of antiquity. During the Islamic period, Erbil was home to important Muslim poets, historians, and scholars, and later served as a cultural and administrative center in the Ottoman Empire.

Today, as capital of Iraq's Kurdish region, Erbil remains very much a living city. Decades of civil unrest, however, have taken their toll on the ancient citadel’s outer wall and the buildings within it, many of which lack electricity and proper drainage and sanitation systems. The recent developments in Iraq bring with them an opportunity under which conservation work and repair of the citadel might begin. However, funds and technical assistance are critical to the future of the city of Erbil as a whole.

UPDATE

In 2010 the citadel was inscribed in Iraq's Tentative World Heritage List, following the allocation of more than $13 million in public funds for the preservation of the site. UNESCO is also a partner in the preservation project, managed since 2007 by the High Commission for Erbil Citadel Revitalization. Some residential quarters near the citadel are also due to be restored. January 2011