Old Basra , 1923

Basra, also written Basrah , is the capital of Basra Governorate, located on the Shatt al-Arab river in southern Iraq between Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of 1.5 million of 2012.Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr.

The city is part of the historic location of Sumer, the home of Sinbad the Sailor, and a proposed location of the Garden of Eden. It played an important role in early Islamic history and was built in 636 AD or 14 AH. It is Iraq's second largest and most populous city after Baghdad. Basra is consistently one of the hottest cities on the planet, with summer temperatures regularly exceeding 50 °C (122 °F).

 Source: Wikipedia

Thanks to Hasanain for this beautiful reproduction of Basra.

Sent: 5 Aug 2015   Received: 5 Oct 2015   Travelled: 61 days

Iraq

On one of the two most prominent mounds of Nineveh's ruins, rose the Mosque of prophet Yunus, the son of Amittai, from the 8th century BC. The mosque, which earlier was a Nestorian-Assyrian Church, was believed to be the burial place of Yunus, or Jonah, as he is known in English translations of the Bible. It is also where King Esarhaddon had once built a palace.

This shrine on the site of a Christian church was a stone's throw from the built-up walls and gates of Nineveh. In the middle of the mosque stood a sepulcher, covered with a Persian carpet of silk and silver, and at the four corners, great copper candlesticks with wax tapers, besides several lamps and ostrich shells that hung down from the roof. A whale's tooth, appropriate to Jonah's well-known adventure at sea, was said to be preserved there.

It was one of the most important mosques in Mosul and one of the few historic mosques in the east side of the city.

On July 24, 2014, the building was destroyed by explosives set by forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. A security source, who kept his identity anonymous, told the Iraq-based al-Sumaria News that ISIS militants "seized control of the mosque completely."The militants then closed all doors and prevented worshipers from entering to pray. They then detonated explosives, destroying the mosque and damaging several nearby houses. They stated “the mosque had become a place for apostasy, not prayer.”

Big thanks for this vintage card that arrived. A little sadden to hear that this place shown

on the card is no more.

Sent: 26 February 2015   Received: 14 April 2015   Travelled: 47 days

Babylon

 

Thank you Zaid for this Babylonian postcard from Iraq!

Sent: 13 April 2014   Received: 9 May 2014   Travelled: 26 days

Ishtar Gate

The smaller reproduction of the gate was built in Iraq under Saddam Hussein as the entrance to a museum that has not been completed. Damage to this reproduction has occurred since the Iraq war.

 

Parts of the gate and lions from the Processional Way are in various other museums around the world. Only three museums acquired dragons, while lions went to several museums. The Istanbul Archaeology Museum has lions, dragons, and bulls. The Detroit Institute of Arts houses a dragon. The Röhsska Museum in Gothenburg, Sweden, has one dragon and one lion; the Louvre, the State Museum of Egyptian Art in Munich, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Oriental Institute in Chicago, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, each have lions. One of the processional lions was recently loaned by Berlin's Vorderasiatisches Museum to the British Museum

 

It's odd to think that I might have seen pieces of it in different museums without realizing it. I do

distinctively remember the aurochs from the museum in Istanbul. Of the three cards which I swapped from Iraq, none arrived but Ahmed was very nice to enquire if his card had arrived,since it didn't he resent another card. Thank you very much Ahmed for this card with great stamps!

Sent: 9 March 2014   Received: 11 April 2014   Travelled: 33 days 

Ebil, Kurdistan

The historic citadel that dates back thousand of years and is currently being restored.

Kurdistan "Land of the Kurds";ancient name: Corduene , is a roughly defined geo-cultural region wherein the Kurdish people form a prominent majority population, and Kurdish culture, language, and national identity have historically been based. Contemporary use of Kurdistan refers to large parts of eastern Turkey (Turkish Kurdistan) northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan), northwestern Iran ( Iranian Kurdistan) and northeastern Syria (Western Kurdistan) inhabited mainly by Kurds.

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan
 

My very first card from Iraq!

Thank you Oliver for this card from the Kurdistan region. So glad it arrived eventhough it got lost in Thailand.

 



Sent: Postmark unclear
Received: 5 July 2013