Garmian, (old: 'Garmakan', Syriac: ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ; béṯ garmay) is a historical region around the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. [1] It is located at southeast of the Little Zab, southwest of the mountains of Shahrazor, northeast of the Tigris and the Jabal Hamrin, although sometimes including parts of southwest of the Jabal Hamrin, and northwest of the Sirwan River.
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The name "Beth Garmai" or "Beth Garme" is of Syriac origin which meaning "the house of bones"[2], which is thought to be a reference to bones of slaughtered Achaemenids after a decisive battle between Alexander the Great and Darius III on the plains between the Upper Zab and Diyala river.[3]
In the Parthian and Sassanid eras Garmian or as it was called back then 'Garmakan' was a small kingdom, centered at the city of Karkheni (later known as Kirkuk). This kingdom bordered Sharazor to the east and Nodardashiragan to the north. At the end of the Parthian era it was combined with Sharazor and the king ruled it named Yazdan Kard (meaning Servant of God in Kurdish). It was conquered by Arab general Utba bin Farqad Al-Salami in 7th century AD.
The region was a prosperous metropolitan province centered at Karkha D'Beth Slokh (Kirkuk), It had a substantial Nestorian Assyrian population until the fourteenth century when the region was zonquered by Timurlane. [4]