Iraq

Baghdad — the capital of Iraq (population 8 million, on the Tigris river in central Mesopotamia) with the Iraq Museum (the finest collection of Mesopotamian antiquities in the world — Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian artefacts spanning 7,000 years, including the treasures of Ur, the Warka Vase (3200 BC — one of the oldest narrative relief carvings on earth) and the Assyrian winged bull guardians).

💡 The Iraq Museum (the national museum of Iraq, founded 1926) holds the most important collection of Mesopotamian antiquities in the world. The museum was looted during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq; approximately 15,000 objects were stolen. Over 8,000 have since been recovered through international cooperation; approximately 7,000 remain missing. The looting of the Iraq Museum was one of the worst cultural disasters of the 21st century.

Babylon (UNESCO World Heritage 2019 — 80km south of Baghdad, the ruins of the greatest city of the ancient Near East, capital of the Neo-Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC) — who built the Ishtar Gate (the original in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum), the Processional Way and possibly the Hanging Gardens — the Etemenanki ziggurat, the real Tower of Babel, and the restored but controversial Saddam-era reconstruction of the palace walls).

💡 Babylon was one of the largest cities in the ancient world at its peak under Nebuchadnezzar II (population estimated at 200,000 — the largest city in the world in 600 BC). Saddam Hussein controversially rebuilt portions of the ancient walls (inscribing his own name on the bricks in imitation of Nebuchadnezzar’s practice) and built a palace on a hill overlooking the ruins. The UNESCO listing (2019) came with requirements to address this damage to archaeological context.

Najaf (the holiest city in Shia Islam — the Imam Ali Mosque containing the tomb of Ali ibn Abi Talib, the first Imam and the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad — visited by 20 million pilgrims per year, the second most visited Islamic pilgrimage site after Mecca) and Karbala (the site of the Battle of Karbala 680 AD — where Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet, was martyred — the central event of the Shia Islamic faith).

💡 The Battle of Karbala (10 October 680 AD — the day of Ashura, when Hussein ibn Ali and a small group of 72 companions were killed by the Umayyad army of Yazid I in the desert of Karbala) is the pivotal event in Shia Islam — the death of the grandson of the Prophet on what is perceived as a matter of principle and justice, rather than surrender, defines the Shia tradition of martyrdom and resistance. Arba’een (the 40th day after Ashura) draws up to 20 million pilgrims to Karbala — the largest annual human gathering on earth.

Ur (3km from Nasiriyah — the Royal Tombs of Ur (2600–2400 BC), one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history, excavated by Leonard Woolley 1922–1934, containing the royal burials of Queen Puabi and others with gold headdresses, lyres, and evidence of mass human sacrifice at the royal funeral — and the Ziggurat of Ur, the best-preserved Sumerian ziggurat in Iraq, built by King Ur-Nammu c. 2100 BC).

💡 The Ziggurat of Ur (built by King Ur-Nammu c. 2100 BC — a massive stepped pyramid of mud brick 43m high in its original form, with three terraces dedicated to the moon god Nanna — was restored by Saddam Hussein in the 1980s and is the best-preserved major ziggurat in Iraq. Ur is also identified in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition as the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham (Ibrahim), making it one of the most theologically significant sites in the Abrahamic world.

1h30 flight. Erbil (the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, population 1.5 million — one of the most continuously inhabited cities in the world, with the Erbil Citadel (UNESCO World Heritage — a tell, or artificial mound of human occupation, 32m high and 450m in diameter, occupied without break for approximately 8,000 years, the most continuously inhabited site in the world currently under active UNESCO preservation) and the bazaar below.

💡 Erbil Citadel (Hawler in Kurdish — the administrative capital of the Kurdistan Region, sitting on a 32m tell of accumulated human occupation dating back 6,000–8,000 years) is the most continuously inhabited urban site in the world. The tell was created by the gradual accumulation of demolished mud-brick structures over 8,000 years; the current level is 32m above the surrounding plain, entirely composed of collapsed previous settlements.

Amadiya (a town of 3,000 perched on a flat-topped mountain at 1,400m above the Amadiya plain, with ancient gateways and churches — one of the most dramatically sited small towns in the Middle East) and Duhok (the administrative capital of the western Kurdistan mountains, with the Zakho Bridge, a 12th-century Abbasid stone arch bridge and the finest market in northern Iraq — the Kurdistan Region is significantly safer and more tourist-friendly than southern Iraq).

💡 Iraqi Kurdistan (the Kurdistan Region of Iraq — an autonomous region of approximately 40,000km² in northern Iraq governed semi-independently since 1991) has been effectively self-governing since the Gulf War. The region has a separate government, separate security forces (the Peshmerga), a different visa regime from the rest of Iraq, and a significantly safer and more accessible tourist environment than southern Iraq.

Lalish (the holiest shrine in Yazidism — a small valley in the Kurdistan mountains containing the tomb of Sheikh Adi ibn Musafir (died 1162 AD), the central saint of the Yazidi religion, with conical white stone towers, sacred snakes (do not step on the threshold), olive oil lamps burning at every doorway and a sacred spring visited by pilgrims barefoot) — the most important site for the Yazidi people, who were subject to genocidal attack by ISIS in 2014. Fly from Baghdad (BGW) or Erbil (EBL).

💡 The Yazidi genocide of 2014 (the systematic attack by ISIS on the Yazidi minority of Sinjar district in August 2014 — an estimated 5,000 Yazidi men killed, 7,000 women and children taken as slaves, 500,000 displaced from the Sinjar mountain — recognised as genocide by the United Nations, the European Parliament and many governments) was the most systematic targeted ethnic and religious killing in the Middle East since the Armenian Genocide. Lalish survived; the Yazidi community is slowly recovering.