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Image Title calendar2024-01-28

Grdi Kani Shaie, excavations provided the first stratigraphic sequence for this previously unexplored region

Kani Shaie is a site located in the Bazian Valley that has been excavated by the University of Coimbra, with many collaborations since 2013. This 60m diameter mound revealed continuous occupation from the Ubaid period in the 5th millennium BCE to the Early Bronze Age in the 3rd millennium BCE

Image Title calendar2025-01-17

Halaf and Late Chalcolithic occupations at Shakar Tepe in the Shahrizor Plain, Iraqi Kurdistan: Preliminary report of the 2023 excavations

The Shahrizor Plain is one of the ideal fields for tracking the transition from Neolithic village life in the Fertile Crescent to Urbanisation which occurred in Mesopotamia because of its geographical location connecting the mountainside valleys along the Zagros and the downstream Diyala River that flows into the Tigris. Our field project aims to obtain archaeological materials to unveil this process. Following the first excavations at Shakar Tepe conducted in 2019, we excavated two additional areas at this site in 2023, including one of the three satellite mounds that were newly identified around the main mound. The cultural remains of the Late Halaf settlement uncovered from Operation B at Shakar Tepe II date back to approximately 5600–5400 calBC. On the other hand, Operation C at Shakar Tepe I yielded a thick deposit of the Late Chalcolithic occupations dated to ca. 3800–3600 calBC. The recovered materials fill the time ranges in the late prehistoric chronology of the site and will contribute to our understanding of the historical role of this region in the transition from Neolithisation to Urbanisation.

Image Title calendar2024-01-28

Shakar Tapa on the Sharazor plain has revealed a new episode of the Neolithic discovery

Shakar Tapa has been known as a conspicuous archaeological site in the south of the Shahrazor Plain since the mid-20th century. It has an oval plan consisting of a low northeastern mound and a high conical southwestern mound with a flat top.

Late Prehistoric Investigations at Shakar Tepe, the Shahrizor Plain, Iraqi Kurdistan: Preliminary Results of the First Season (2019)

Article Name

Grdi-Shakar Tapa on the Sharazor plain in Iraq's Kurdistan Region has revealed a new episode of the Neolithic discovery
Shakar Tapa has been known as a conspicuous archaeological site in the south of the
Shahrazor Plain since the mid-20th century. It has an oval plan consisting of a low northeastern mound and a high conical southwestern mound with a flat top. The Darband-i Khan Dam Lake is adjacent to the north of the site and its water occasionally reaches the skirt of the mound, causing crucial erosion of the northern edge of the mound. Many archaeological materials were collected on the surface of Shakar Tapa in the past. Although most of them can be dated to the historical ages, such as the Early-to-Middle Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Parthian-Sasanian Period, some artefacts were certainly dated to the prehistoric period.
In 2019 a Japanese archaeological team (directed by Takahiro Odaka, Kanazawa
University) started the excavations of Shakar Tapa to investigate its late prehistoric occupation.
The first operation of a step trench was set at the northwestern skirt of the high mound and yielded the Ubaid deposit and the Late Neolithic stratigraphic sequence covering ca. 6400-6000
BC. Virgin soil was reached at the northwestern end of the trench about 5 m below the highest level of this trench. The second season carried out in 2023 revealed the younger Late
Chalcolithic deposit at the area near the trench in 2019. In addition, a few low satellite mounds were identified west of the main mound and another late prehistoric deposit was uncovered at one of them.