Beth Garmai, (Arabic:باجرمي,lit. 'Bājarmī',Middle Persian:Garamig/Garamīkān/Garmagān,New Persian:Garmakan,Kurdish:Germiyan/گەرمیان,Classical Syriac:ܒܝܬ ܓܪܡܐ,romanized: Bêṯ Garmē,[1]Latin andGreek:Garamaea) is a historicalAssyrian region around the city ofKirkuk in northern Iraq.[2] It is located at southeast of theLittle Zab, southwest of the mountains ofShahrazor, northeast of theTigris andHamrin Mountains, although sometimes including parts of southwest of Hamrin Mountains, and northwest of theSirwan River.
The name "Beth Garmai" or "Beth Garme" may be of Syriac origin which meaning "the house of bones", which is thought to be a reference to bones of slaughteredAchaemenids after a decisive Macedonian victory in theBattle of Gaugamela.[3] An alternative explanation for the name's origin suggests that it may have been derived from a people, possibly an Assyrian orPersian tribe.[4]
The region was a province,Garmekan, under theSasanians. It was a prosperousmetropolitan province centered atKarkha D'Beth Slokh (Kirkuk), It had a substantialAssyrian population who mostly followed theChurch of the East until the fourteenth century, when the region was conquered byTimurlane, who conducted massacres of the indigenous Assyrian population of what is today Northern Iraq, Southeast Turkey and Northeast Syria.[5][6]
