Samarra

Samarra (Arabic: سَامَرَّاء, Sāmarrāʾ) is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, 125 kilometers (78 mi) north of Baghdad. The modern city of Samarra was founded in 836 by the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim as a new administrative capital and military base.[1] In 2003 the city had an estimated population of 348,700.[citation needed] During the Iraqi Civil War, Samarra was in the "Sunni Triangle" of resistance. The archeological site of Samarra still retains much of the historic city's original plan, architecture and artistic relics.[2] In 2007, UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site.[3] The remains of prehistoric Samarra were first excavated between 1911 and 1914 by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld. Samarra became the type site for the Samarra culture. Since 1946, the notebooks, letters, unpublished excavation reports and photographs have been in the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.