The history of Diyarbakır (Kurdish: Amed‎, Zaza: Diyarbekir, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: Amedi or Amedu‎, Armenian: Տիգրանակերտ, Tigranakert; Syriac: ܐܡܝܕ‎, romanized: Āmīd), one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey and a metropolitan municipality of Turkey, spans millennia. Diyarbakır is situated on the banks of the Tigris River. The city was first mentioned by Assyrian texts as the capital of a Semitic kingdom. It was ruled by a succession of nearly every polity that controlled Upper Mesopotamia, including the Mitanni, Arameans, Assyrians, Urartu, Armenians, Achaemenid Persians, Medes, Seleucids, and Parthians. The Roman Republic gained control of the city in the first century BC, by which stage it was named "Amida". Amida was then part of the Christian Byzantine Empire until the seven