The Basra Road

HQ 7th Armoured brigade
The Basra Road
28th February, 1991
Signed limited edition print of 250 by Michael Turner
Image size 21" x 16"

Basra is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 2.5 million in 2012.
Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is handled at the port of Umm Qasr.
The city is one of the ports from which the fictional Sinbad the Sailor journeyed.
The city was founded at the beginning of the Islamic era in 636 and began as a garrison encampment for Arab tribesmen
constituting the armies of the Rashid Caliph Umar.
A tell a few kilometers south of the present city, still marks the original site which was a military site.
While defeating the forces of the Sassanid Empire there,
the Muslim commander Utbah ibn Ghazwan erected his camp on the site of an old Persian military settlement called Vahestabad Ardasir,
which was destroyed by the Arabs.
The name Al- Basrah, which in Arabic means 'the over watching' or 'the seeing everything,'
was given to it because of its role as a military base against the Sassanid Empire.
However, other sources claim the name originates from the Persian word Bas-rah or Bassorah meaning 'where many ways come together.'