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Image Title calendar2024-01-28

Gird-î Qalrakh: a small mound in the North-eastern Shahrazor Plain

The site of Gird-î Qalrakh is a small but steep settlement place in the North-eastern Shahrazor-Plain. It was excavated in three seasons (2016, 2017 and 2019), the fourth season 2023 has just started. The archaeological discovery will be carried out jointly by the Slemani Archaeological and Heritage Directorates, along with two universities (University of Erlangen and University of Frankfurt), in Gridi-Kazhaw and Qalrgh. It will continue for years.

Image Title calendar2024-01-28

NEW INVESTIGATIONS IN THE ENVIRONMENT, HISTORY, AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE IRAQI HILLY FLANKS: SHAHRIZOR SURVEY PROJECT 2009–2011

Recent palaeoenvironmental, historical, and archaeological investigations, primarily consisting of site reconnaissance, in the Shahrizor region within the province of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan are bringing to light new information on the region’s social and socio-ecological development.

Image Title calendar2024-01-30

Some maps and data of archaeological sites in Slemani province

Some maps and data of archaeological sites in Slemani province

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

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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.