Amuda

Amuda or Amouda (Arabic: عامودا‎ 'Āmūdā, Kurdish: Amûdê‎) is a town in Al Hasakah Governorate) in northeastern Syria close to the border with Turkey. Amuda has a mostly Kurdish population with also a significant Assyrian presence.

History

Two tells exist in the area; the first is inside Amuda itself and the second exist on the Turkish side of the borders 3 kilometers north of the city. In older literature and some modern one, the tell inside Amuda is named tell Amuda; however, the actual name of it, according to locals, is tell Shermola while the tell on the Turkish side is the real tell Amuda which had its name changed by the Turkish authorities to tell Kemaliya.

Tell Shermola revealed evidence for a limited occupation dating to the third millennium BC.

Middle Assyrian period

Archaeological evidence from Shermola dating to the middle Assyrian period reveal that the city was inhabited by Assyrians as early as the reign of Shalmaneser I (1250 BC).

Shermola is identified by Elisabeth Wagner-Durand and Jeanne Marie Aynard with the Assyrian city of Kulishinas (Kulišinaš). This identification is based on tablets written in Kulishinas discovered and sold to museums by a dealer who claimed that they were taken from Shermola; hence, the identification is not certain although Shermola being a middle Assyrian city is confirmed by archaeology.