Go tell it on a mountain

Aerial View of Hewler (Erbil) Citadel, an inhabited tell (mound) in the center of Hewler

 Last week I was in Hewler (Erbil), the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, for job-related meetings. After three or four days of meetings and interviews, I took an afternoon to visit the Citadel (Qalah), a tell, or mound, that some argue is the oldest continuously inhabited settlement (7,000 years!). The Wikipedia article is actually pretty informative, and I'm not eager to summarize it here since I've been writing reports a lot lately for work.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_of_Arbil

The Citadel has been under major renovation since 2007, when the Kurdistan Regional Government partnered with UNESCO and other international groups (donors, archeologists, etc.). Until then, there were still inhabited houses on the citadel, but the families have since been temporarily relocated during renovation.

It was a hot afternoon, and beads of sweat stood out on my forehead as I hiked up the stone stairs to the top of the tell. Only a handful of locals and maybe a few tourists were wandering around, snapping photos and straggling along the main avenue which runs North-South. Fairly deserted and dusty, the Citadel under renovation has become a ghost town. The UNESCO staff wouldn't open the Kurdish textile museum for me to take a peek. (I tried using my employer's name; they were unimpressed.) The alleyways were cordoned off and I was warned not to enter them, though I may have sidestepped a few ropes and poked my head inside a couple of houses. One in particular boasted a nice veranda and colored glass windows. A teenage boy followed me into one alley and I promptly returned to the main avenue. The only sound was the flapping of the large Kurdish flag above.

I entered a dark tourist hut on the main avenue. Predictably, it contained orientalist kitsch, objects covered in layers of dust, like clunky metal jewelry, scarves probably made in China, and bric a brac elephants (why?) and Aladdin lamps. An assortment of travelogues, maps, and English and Kurdish language books, also, dust-covered, tumbled over the shelves and onto the floor. The only two people in the shop seemed drawn only by the air-conditioning unit, which they stood languidly beside.

Without placards explaining the history and without any kind of props, and with no background knowledge which I could have drawn upon, my imagination was as blank as the site. Although I knew the Citadel to be of some significance to a succession of empires, people groups, and religions, I could not imagine what life must have been like there. Hopefully the renovation efforts will provide future visitors with more information.

After some minutes wandering up and down the main avenue, I looked below at the garden and decided to explore the old bazaar (the arches to the left and right of the park).