A line of barefoot girls in headscarves and long patterned skirts carry large clay water jars on their backs past a brick wall. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 50 from the series "The Persians, Kurds, and Nestorians, their manners and customs", attributed by the Nelson Collection to Ernest Hoeltzer, late 19th century; published in The Living Races of Mankind (1901) as "Armenians water-carrying (Nestorians)" and by D'Allemagne (1911) as "Jeunes filles Nestoriennes faisant le métier de porteuses d'eau" (young Nestorian women working as water carriers).

Nestorian (Assyrian) girls carrying water jars

Rounded stone incised with a cross and a Syriac inscription, from Urgut near Samarkand, Uzbekistan, dated by its caption to the 8th-13th century.

Christian stone with cross from Urgut, Uzbekistan

Page from British Library Add MS 7170 (fol. 21r): two columns of Estrangela Syriac script above a crowded painted scene with angels and figures in a gold-and-red frame. Made in northern Iraq about 1216 to 1220.

Text and miniature, folio 21r of a Syriac lectionary, about 1220

The Crucifixion from the Syriac gospel lectionary British Library Add MS 7170, with mourners and soldiers in contemporary dress against a deep blue ground, made in northern Iraq about 1216 to 1220.

Crucifixion, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Miniature of the women arriving at Christ's empty tomb, met by a seated angel, with soldiers asleep and stylised trees above, from the Syriac gospel lectionary British Library Add MS 7170, made in northern Iraq about 1216 to 1220.

Holy women at the tomb, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Full-page miniature from a Syriac gospel lectionary (British Library Add MS 7170, fol. 156v) showing the risen Christ with a cross, raising Adam and Eve from broken gates, inside a patterned border. The manuscript was made in northern Iraq, probably in the Mosul region, about 1216 to 1220.

Christ's descent into hell, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Consecration of the Virgin Mary church in Paramus, 1968

Urmia refugees on horseback trekking through Bijar, 1918

View over the rooftops of Urmia

Mar Eshai Shimun with the patriarchal family, about 1924

Bear hunters at Qudshanis

Jilu Assyrian orphans breaking stones for the Persian road

Two monks at the gate of the new monastery of Rabban Hormizd, Alqosh, 1897

Al-Shahba Sports Club after winning the second division, Aleppo, 1968

Priest Abraham of Urmia, 1843 lithograph

Priest holding a gospel at the Church of the Virgin, Hah, 1909

Syrian (Assyrian) women of the Kurdistan mountains in flight

Refugee children on Christmas Day 1915, Urmia

Jilu Assyrian refugees coming over the Asadabad Pass

Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Behnam II Benni, 1898 engraving

Monastery of Mor Awgin on Mount Izla, 1909

Iraq Levy with raised dagger, photographed by Cecil Beaton, 1942

Iraq Levies recruits drilling at Habbaniya

Mrs. Khnan-Eshoo Abraham in mountain Nestorian costume

The patriarchal house at Qudshanis, 1912

Leaders of the 1898 union of Urmia Assyrians with Russian Orthodoxy

Assyrian printers at the mission press, Urmia, c. 1900

Mutrâv Paulus, Syrian Roman Catholic bishop in Mosul

Five elderly Assyrian men, Van Province

Patriarch Ruel Mar Shimun

Assyrian woman spinning wool at Tel Tamer, 1938

Six Assyrian Levies at camp in Baqubah, 1920

Rubbing of the gravestone of Elizabeth, Yangzhou, 1317

Faces, places & memories of the Assyrian people.

Christian stone with cross from Urgut, Uzbekistan

Text and miniature, folio 21r of a Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Crucifixion, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Holy women at the tomb, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Christ's descent into hell, Syriac lectionary, about 1220

Every family has photographs that belong here.