Barṭelle
A small town located some 20 km. to the southeast of Mosul on the road that links this city with Arbela and on which Karamlish and Qaraqosh are also found. Its name in Syriac is Barṭelli or Barṭellā and in Sureth Bareṭlā. Its history is best known during and after the 12th cent., when it served as the seat of several maphrians who resided in the church of Mar Aḥudemmeh. Maphrian Ignatius Loʿozar selected it for his residence in 1153 on account of its close proximity to Dayro d-Mor Matay. His successors included Grigorios Barṣawmo Ṣafī, the brother of Bar ʿEbroyo, who died in Barṭelle in 1307/8 and Grigorios Matay I, son of Ḥanno, whose name is inscribed in a rock baptismal fount dated to 1342/43, currently in the church of Mart Shmuni. In 1284, Bar ʿEbroyo built in Barṭelle a monastery dedicated to the martyrs John son of the Carpenters (Nagore) and his sister Susan. The monastery and churches of the town suffered destruction in the past and during the invasion of Nādir Shāh in the middle of the 18th cent. Three churches dedicated to Mart Shmuni, the Virgin Mary, and St. George are currently owned by the Syr. Orth. and Syr. Cath. communities which still speak Sureth.
Sources
- Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne, vol. 2, 416–38.
- Harrak, Syriac and Garshuni Inscriptions of Iraq.