Nasiriyah
— — a city where the river bends and the marshes begin.
Not only on a wall.
“A city of some half a million on the Euphrates in Dhi Qar Governorate, founded in 1872 by Nasir Pasha al-Sa'dun on the river's south bank. The marshes of southern Iraq begin to the east, and the ziggurat of Ur stands about fifteen kilometres south-west, beyond the old British airfield. Date palms still ring the city in the months after harvest. The Euphrates runs slowly here, brown and steady, the way old rivers do. from the studio
Nasiriyah, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Nasiriyah is the capital of Dhi Qar Governorate in southern Iraq, on the south bank of the Euphrates River about 370 kilometres south-east of Baghdad and roughly 15 kilometres north-east of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur. The modern city was founded in 1872 by the Muntafiq tribal leader Nasir Pasha al-Sa'dun and named for him. Population estimates put it above 560,000. The Mesopotamian Marshes lie immediately east, restored after years of deliberate draining and inscribed by UNESCO in 2016 as a mixed natural and cultural World Heritage Site.
The Euphrates here is wide, slow, and the colour of milky tea, carrying silt down from Anatolia toward the Shatt al-Arab. Date gardens still line the riverbank, watered through small canals cut from the main channel. East of the city the river splits into the channels of the Central Marshes, where Marsh Arab families have returned to reed-built mudhif houses since the early 2000s. The water level rises with the spring snowmelt from Turkey and falls through the long summer months.
The ziggurat of Ur is the main reason most outside visitors come to Nasiriyah, about fifteen kilometres south-west of the city centre and a short drive from Tallil Air Base, which doubles as the regional airport. The Nasiriyah Museum holds Sumerian and later finds from local digs. The Mesopotamian Marshes are accessible by boat from villages east of the city, with guides arranged through the tribal councils. Iraqi visas are issued on arrival to most nationalities at Baghdad and Basra airports.