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

Two men stand beside a small whitewashed mud-brick church with two windows under tall date palms, captioned as the Protestant church in the Assyrian camp, Baghdad, 1927. From Barclay Acheson's Near East Relief photographs.

Protestant church in the Assyrian camp, Baghdad, 1927

The stone church of Mar Zaya, with a ladder leaning on its flat roof, stands above terraced slopes in the village of Mata d-Mar Zaya in Jilu, Hakkari. Photographed by the Russian officer Sergei Olferiev in 1912.

Church of Mar Zaya at Mata d-Mar Zaya, Jilu, 1912

Engraving of the stone church of Mar Shalita at Kochanes (Qudshanis), the patriarchal seat, with its graveyard, trees and grazing animals below the mountains.

Church of Mar Shalita, Qudshanis, 1891 engraving

Lithograph of the vaulted interior of the Church of Et-Jâhara (possibly al-Tahira) at Mosul, looking toward the carved sanctuary at the eastern end, with a robed figure in the nave.

Church of Et-Jâhara, Mosul: eastern end, 1852 lithograph

St. Mary's Church in Urmia, said by tradition to hold the grave of one of the Magi, with a large crowd of men standing in front of it. Taken before 1916.

St. Mary's Church, Urmia

Drawing of the dark interior of the church of Mar Shalitha at Qudshanis, seat of the Patriarch of the Church of the East, with the arches to the sanctuary and sacristy and offerings of herbs hanging from the beams.

Interior of the church of Mar Shalitha, Qudshanis

Drawing of the rocky gorge at Rabban Hormizd, the monastery in the hills above Alqosh, signed "Rabban Hormizd" in the lower left corner.

Rabban Hormizd, drawing by Edgar Wigram

The arched stone entrance of the church of St. Mark on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, catalogued by the photographers as the "Syrian Church"; an inscription is carved in the lintel above the door.

Entrance to the Syriac Orthodox church of St. Mark, Jerusalem

A framed Syriac inscription set into a stone wall at the church of St. Mark on Mount Zion, captioned by the photographers as a "Syrian or Syriac inscription found under plaster about 1520 A.D."

Syriac inscription in the convent of St. Mark, Jerusalem

The interior of the church of St. Mark on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, catalogued as the "Syrian Church" and noted by the Library of Congress as also known as the Assyrian Convent of St. Mark. Hanging lamps, a carved wooden pulpit and an ornate altar screen fill the nave.

Interior of the Syriac Orthodox church of St. Mark, Jerusalem

A packed Palm Sunday procession of the Syrian (Syriac) Orthodox community in Jerusalem, which the photographers' log says was led by Archbishop Jacob Filixinos. Boys in white robes carry palm fronds and tall candles through the crowd.

Syriac Orthodox Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem, 1941

Lithograph of the monastery of Mar Mattai built against the cliffs of a mountain above a rocky gorge, with small figures on the path below. The plate, captioned "Syrian convent of Mar Mattai or Sheikh Matta", faces p. 97 of George Percy Badger's The Nestorians and Their Rituals, vol. 1 (London, 1852); Badger visited the convent in 1844 and 1850 and signed his preface there in August 1850.

Syrian convent of Mar Mattai (Sheikh Matta)

Patriarch Abraham Mar Shimun

Faces, places & memories of the Assyrian people.