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

A large group of boys and girls of the Assyrian Orphanage in Adana pose in front of an arched building with their teachers and leaders, among them the monk Hanna (Yuhanon) Dolabani. Photographed by Abrohom Nuro in 1921.

Students and staff of the Assyrian orphanage in Adana, 1921

Rows of boys in long tunics and caps stand behind seated Syriac Orthodox clergy at the Deyrulzafaran (Mor Hananyo) monastery near Mardin in 1918. The source identifies the group as the monk Hanna Dolabani with orphaned students.

Monk Hanna Dolabani with orphaned students at Deyrulzafaran, 1918

An inscribed stone obelisk headed "In Memoriam" stands on a stepped plinth inside a wire fence at the Baqubah camp, with tents behind. The English inscription says thousands of Christian Assyrians from the mountains of Kurdistan and Van and the districts of Salmas and Urmia lie there; a side panel in Syriac and English names Mar Paulus Shimun, Patriarch of the East.

Memorial stone at the Baqubah refugee camp, 1920

A dense crowd of refugees from the Kurdistan mountains, men, women and children, fills the steps and yard of a brick building at the Russian consulate in Urmia. Published in Abraham Yohannan's The Death of a Nation (1916); they were likely Assyrians from Hakkari.

Refugees from the Kurdistan mountains at the Russian consulate, Urmia

A long column of refugees on foot, with carts and horses, winds down a slope beside Lake Urmia in spring 1915. Photographed by Basil Nikitin, then Russian consul at Urmia; the refugees are likely Assyrian and Armenian Christians.

Refugee column near Lake Urmia, 1915

An elderly bearded archdeacon in a white headcloth and a torn, patched coat stands holding the hand of a young boy. Published in 1916 in Rockwell's account of the Assyrian refugees in Persia; he was likely a Church of the East cleric from Hakkari.

A refugee archdeacon and a boy, 1916

Assyrian Christian refugees from Tiyari and Tkhuma sit in a grove hung with drying meat and clothing, autumn 1915. The original caption says they brought their sheep, wheat, kettles and clothes and had no shelter for the winter.

Assyrian refugees from Tiyari and Tkhuma encamped near Urmia, 1915

Studio portrait of two young women, Stera and Warina, one standing in a white dress and one seated. Their account appears in Naayem's chapter "Stera and Warena" among depositions about the massacres.

Stera and Warina, survivors of the massacres

Joseph Naayem, author of Shall This Nation Die?, in Bedouin dress beside a horse, the disguise in which, the caption says, he escaped from the Turks. Frontispiece of the 1921 book.

Joseph Naayem in the Bedouin disguise of his escape

Armenian and Syrian (Assyrian) refugees with carts and bundles in the tree-lined avenue leading out of the Kurdish gate of Urmia in 1918.

Armenian and Syrian (Assyrian) refugees at the Kurdish gate, Urmia, 1918

Armed men with rifles and bandoliers, described as "our army of defence", crowded in a street at Urmia in 1918, during the Assyrian defence of the city.

The army of defence at Urmia, 1918

Dr. William Ambrose Shedd, the American missionary (likely the man in the white suit), among refugees seated with their bundles in the city compound at Urmia in 1918.

Dr. Shedd with refugees in the city compound, Urmia, 1918

A group of maliks, the chiefs of the Nestorian (Assyrian) mountain tribes from Turkey, in embroidered tribal dress, posed in two rows before the tents of the Baqubah refugee camp in 1919.

Maliks of the Assyrian mountain tribes at Baqubah, 1919

Six priests and deacons of the Church of the East in mountain dress and turbans, three seated and three standing, in front of a tent at Baghdad in 1919.

Priests and deacons of the Nestorian (Assyrian) church, Baghdad, 1919

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 large group of refugee girls from the Kurdistan mountains posed in rows in front of a brick building, with adults standing at the back. Likely 1915.

Refugee girls from the Kurdistan mountains

Women and children of the Kurdistan mountains walking down a rocky slope with bundles, in flight from the massacres. Likely 1914 or 1915.

Syrian (Assyrian) women of the Kurdistan mountains in flight

A caravan of Christian families with ox carts and bundled belongings on the road, fleeing the massacres. Likely 1914 or 1915, in north-west Persia.

Christian families fleeing the Turkish massacre

A dense crowd of refugees from the Kurdistan mountains gathered at the Russian consulate in Urmia. Likely 1915, during the Ottoman and Kurdish attacks on the Assyrians.

Mountain refugees in the Russian consulate, Urmia

Tents and people in the section of the Baqubah refugee camp allotted to Assyrians of the Tiyari tribe. High-contrast black-and-white scan of a halftone plate.

Tents of the Tiyari section at the Baqubah camp

A crowd of men, women and children of the Tkhuma tribe, captioned as "mountaineer Assyrians", gathered beside a tent at the Baqubah refugee camp. High-contrast black-and-white scan of a halftone plate.

Tkhuma mountaineer Assyrians at the Baqubah camp

A long line of Assyrian orphans with Mr. Neesan at the orphanage section of the Baqubah refugee camp, from the commandant's 1920 account of the camp. The plate is printed sideways in the book and the scan is a high-contrast black-and-white copy.

Assyrian orphans at the Baqubah refugee camp

A crowd of refugee children in headscarves and coats, captioned as wearing clothing just given to them on Christmas Day 1915 by Madame Nikitine, wife of the Russian consul at Urumia. Plate from the 1916 pamphlet "The Pitiful Plight of the Assyrian Christians in Persia and Kurdistan."

Refugee children on Christmas Day 1915, Urmia

An older woman in a headscarf and patched coat stands with three children in patterned dresses and caps against a brick wall. The Red Cross caption describes them as "a group of Tiarians who are being helped by the Armenian Committee in Urumia, Persia"; the photograph was received in November 1917.

Faces, places & memories of the Assyrian people.