City
Thelser
Kirkuk
Listen to the story
Thelser was a town in Assyria, beyond the Euphrates, and where exactly it stood is still debated. It is often placed at Kirkuk in Iraq, though some have looked instead to the ruins of Assur on the Tigris, since the thirty-five Roman miles the map gives to Hatra would fit that site well. A list of places compiled in Ravenna calls it Zelfir, and the geographer Ptolemy has a Thelbe in a similar position. Roads meet here: seventy-five miles from Biturs, and forty on to the Rhamma river.