With Anatolia to its west and the great cultures of Mesopotamia to its south, Siirt has stood like a bridge between civilisations for something close to twelve thousand years. In the earliest period for which there is evidence it belongs to the Tell Halaf and Ubaid cultures.
The Semites were the first to begin the work of civilisation here, founding small cities. After them the Sumerians, Akkadians, Gutians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Mitanni and Hurrians appear on the stage in turn. One of the province's brightest periods came under the Medes. It passed to the Persians, opened its gates to Alexander and became one of the important works of Hellenistic culture, and afterwards was a cause of serious fighting between Rome on one side and the Parthians and Sasanians on the other.
Muslim rule began in 640, when the Islamic armies under Iyad ibn Ghanm and Khalid ibn al-Walid reached the region and the patriarch of Siirt handed the city over. With its steep mountains, its defensible castles and its strategic position, Siirt passed after the age of the caliphs to the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Hamdanids, the Marwanids, the Artuqids of Hasankeyf, the Zengids and the Ayyubids.
