volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

The Synagogue of Nahum the Prophet. 241
among the clergy a hoard of fine Syriac manuscripts
was preserved.
The following morning, November 30th, my host
took me to see Al-K6sh.' The people were chiefly
Nestorians, or Chaldeans, and judging by their faces
most of them seemed to be of Kurdish origin. The
village, or town, as it undoubtedly was in ancient days,
owed its importance to the fact that it was the seat
of the Nestorian Patriarchs after they were obliged to
leave Seleucia and Baghdad. Its pre-Christian history
is unknown. It is commonly believed throughout Mesopotamia
that Nahum " the Elkoshite " was born there
and his tomb is pointed out in the village to this day,
Benjamin of Tudela^ says that Nahum was buried at
Mosul, but makes no mention of Al-K6sh. The town
cannot have been of any great importance in the Middle
Ages, for the great Arab geographers tell us nothing
about it. The houses are built of stone and plastered in
places, and resemble in many details those of Tall Kef
and Tall Uskuf. The two churches dedicated to
Mar Giwargis (George) and Mar Mikha are of little
interest. I paid a visit to the so-called " Synagogue
of Nahum the Prophet." It is a small building, and
the room which contains the tomb was some hundreds
of years old. The tomb itself is of the usual kind, a
huge rectangular box covered with cloth and shut off
from the rest of the room by a screen. I was shown a
Hebrew roll on which was written the prophecy of
Nahum, and it resembled the Aden manuscripts of the
fifteenth century. The property belongs to the Jews,
and once a year, on the sixth of tyar (May), all the Jews
from neighbouring places make a pilgrimage there and
celebrate a festival.
As we were leaving the Synagogue a priest came up
to Nimrud bearing a message from the Prior of the
famous Monastery of Rabban Hormizd, who kindly
invited me to pay him a visit and stay the night in
^ For the condition of the vUlage in the middle of the nineteenth
century see Badger, Nestorians, i, p. 104.
' Ed. Asher, p. 91.