Baba Gurgur
| Baba Gurgur | |
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The Eternal Fire at Baba Gurgur
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| Country |
 Iraq
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| Coordinates | 35°31′58″N 44°20′09″E / 35.5329°N 44.3357°ECoordinates: 35°31′58″N 44°20′09″E / 35.5329°N 44.3357°E |
| Operator | Iraq Petroleum Company |
| Field history | |
| Discovery | 1927 |
Baba Gurgur (Central Kurdish: بابەگوڕگوڕ) is a large oil field and gas flame near the city of Kirkuk which was the first to be discovered in Northern Iraq in 1927. The field is 40 meters in diameter and has been burning for 2,500 years.
It was considered the largest oil field in the world until the discovery of the Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia in 1948. Baba Gurgur is 16 kilometres north-west of Arrapha and is famous for its Eternal Fire (Arabic: النار الازلية) at the middle of its oil fields.
The name Baba Gurgur derives from Turkmen Baba (father) and Gur (fiery, fire, flowing). The name is translated form Kurdish into "Father of Eternal Fiery".
Some believe the Eternal Fire to be the fiery furnace mentioned in the Book of Daniel, chapter 3 in the Tanakh (Old Testament) into which King Nebuchadnezzar (c. 630–562 BC), King of Babylon, threw three Hebrews for refusing to worship his golden idol. It has a significant symbolic value for residents of Kirkuk. Even though the practice is dying out, Kurdish women from all over Kurdistan and Iraq used to visit Baba Gurgur, asking to have a baby boy: "father of fire, I come with fire/hurry, to be a mother to a boy' (Kurdish: "babe gur-gur hatim be gur, bibim be dayikî kur"). This ancient practice probably goes back to the time of fire worshipping or other belief systems which put earthly elements such as fire, the sun, etc. at the center of their practices. The burning flames are the result of an emission of natural gas through cracks in the Baba Gurgur area's rocks. It is believed that the heat of the eternal flames was used by shepherds to warm their flocks during winter.
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