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

View across flat mud-brick roofs and gardens of Urmia toward the mountains, with a two-storey building in the middle distance. Mounted print captioned "Ourmiah", from Henry Binder's album given to the Société de Géographie in 1887.

View over the rooftops of Urmia

Three men stand at a large hand-cranked printing press, one holding up a printed sheet, at the Presbyterian mission press in Urmia about 1900.

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

Group portrait of Russian Orthodox and Assyrian clergy, published in Niva in 1898 under the title "The joining of the Syro-Chaldean Nestorians to the Orthodox Church". The Russian caption names, among others, Bishop Iona, Archpriest Viktor Sinadsky and priest David Veniaminov.

Leaders of the 1898 union of Urmia Assyrians with Russian Orthodoxy

Title page of the Russian-language edition of the Urmia Orthodox mission's periodical ("Pravoslavnaya Urmiya"), no. 16, October 1913, with subscription details. The mission published it alongside a Syriac edition for Assyrian converts to Orthodoxy.

Cover of Pravoslavnaya Urmiya (Urmia Orthodokseta), October 1913

About sixty girls in headscarves sit and stand in rows with two male teachers and several women at the girls' school in Supurghan, a village of the Urmia plain, in 1904. Published in G. D. Malech's History of the Syrian Nation (1910).

Girls' school in Supurghan, Urmia, 1904

Studio portrait of a Nestorian Christian family in Persia: two men stand behind seated women and girls in floral dresses, embroidered caps and necklaces, before a painted backdrop. Glass-plate photograph by Antoin Sevruguin, likely late 19th or early 20th century.

Nestorian (Assyrian) Christian family, studio portrait by Sevruguin

The rocky hill of Kala Ismail Agha (Castle of Ismail) with a walled enclosure and a line of people in the foreground. The caption says a great massacre described in the book took place near the base of the mountain.

Kala Ismail Agha, near the site of a massacre

A crowded street in Urmia; an "x" on the right marks the house in which the author and his family were confined, and the high roof on the left belongs to one of the mission buildings. Likely 1915.

Street in Urmia where the Shahbaz family was confined

A large crowd of men, women and children, captioned "Nestorians from the Plain", gathered in a field. Likely the Urmia plain of north-west Persia, the subject of the book.

Nestorians (Assyrians) from the plain

Studio portrait of the Rev. K. Odisho with his children, described as members of the persecuted Christian church in Urmia. Taken before 1916.

Rev. K. Odisho and his children, Urmia

A large crowd in festive dress moving through a village street in a wedding procession at Urmia, with musicians and onlookers on the roofs. Taken before 1916.

A wedding procession in Urmia

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

Two women in headscarves, embroidered jackets and long skirts work a goatskin churn slung from a wooden tripod in a courtyard. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 52 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 "Butter-making in goat-skin Churns (Nestorians, Armenia)" and by D'Allemagne (1911) as Armenian women making butter.

Nestorian (Assyrian) women churning butter in a goatskin

Women sit outside a doorway with stacks of thin flatbread, a dough tray and a stone hand mill, which one woman turns with a wooden handle; a child holding a cat sits among them and a young woman with a basket stands at right. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 49 from the series "The Persians, Kurds, and Nestorians, their manners and customs", attributed by the Nelson Collection to Ernest Hoeltzer, late 19th century; D'Allemagne (1911) captions it "Femmes Nestoriennes broyant le grain ou le sel et fabriquant le pain" (Nestorian women grinding grain or salt and making bread).

Nestorian (Assyrian) women grinding grain and baking bread

A large wedding crowd, the women in white headscarves and the men in caps, gathers on open ground beside a mud-brick wall, with a drummer and large drum at front left. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 48, attributed by the Nelson Collection to Ernest Hoeltzer, "1897 or earlier"; it was published as "Nestorian Wedding" in Rabbi Mooshie G. Daniel's Modern Persia (1898), and by D'Allemagne (1911) as a wedding celebration among the Nestorians of the Urmia plain.

Nestorian (Assyrian) wedding on the island of Ardeshir, Lake Urmia

A large crowd of refugees, many of them children, sit and stand before a brick building with a large wooden door, with two men in frock coats and lambskin hats at right. Newton & Co lantern slide no. 55, listed in the firm's 1911/12 catalogue as "Refugees from Massacres, principally Nestorian some are Armenians"; the Nelson Collection attributes the photograph to Ernest Hoeltzer and dates it to the late 19th century.

Refugees from massacres, mostly Nestorian (Assyrian) with some Armenians

A woman in a headscarf, embroidered jacket and striped skirt spins wool on a drop spindle, holding the raw wool aloft, in a courtyard with a wooden balustrade; possibly the same woman and courtyard as in the butter-making slide (AA-0019). Newton & Co lantern slide no. 53 from the series "The Persians, Kurds, and Nestorians, their manners and customs", attributed by the Nelson Collection to Ernest Hoeltzer, late 19th century; D'Allemagne's 1911 book captions the same image "Femme Arménienne filant la laine" (Armenian woman spinning wool).

Nestorian (Assyrian) woman spinning wool with a hand spindle

A group of men, women and children stand before a mud wall around a goatskin churn slung from wooden poles, which two girls in front are working. The glass negative is inscribed "Christian family at Maranah, Persia - Buttermaking"; the Library of Congress title, devised with N. Al-Jeloo, gives the village as Mawana. Undated Bain News Service negative.

Faces, places & memories of the Assyrian people.