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Image Title calendar2024-01-28

Complex local settlement in Zagros Mountains before the Assyrians expanded into this region

About 5 km south of the district town of Qaladze, in the Peshdar Plain on the eastern bank of the Little Zab, lie the two archaeological sites of Qalat-i Dinka and Gird-i Bazar.

Image Title calendar2024-01-11

Surveying Dukan Lake

The latest archaeological activity is the survey of some of the archaeological Sites in Dukan Lake. It is a joint work between the Archeology and heritage Directorates (Slemani, Raperin and Pisa University) of Italy.

Image Title calendar2024-01-29

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

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.

Surveying Dukan Lake

Article Name

 The latest archaeological activity is the survey of some of the archaeological Sites in Dukan Lake.  It is a joint work between the Archeology and heritage Directorates (Slemani, Raperin and Pisa University) of Italy.

The decrease in the water level of Dukan Lake provided an important opportunity to survey some of the archaeological sites in the lake (Ranya - Chawarqurna - Bangird - Khdran) that some of them had not been visited since the 1950s  Despite the difficulties, distance and dangers, the work was done very scientifically, with about 13 archaeological hills recorded.

Changes in the deterioration of the archaeological sites due to lake water, visitors and fishermen, but some new periods, archaeological objects and important clay fragments were recovered and re-recorded.  The use of drones, cameras and GPS points was another task of the project, in order to recreate new maps, determine their archaeological periods and provide new information about the hills.

 The recorded archaeological hills are:

(Grdi-Pres  - Grdi-Bayaz Agha - Grdi-Qurala - Krosk Hill -Grdi- Khazem  - Grdi-Rash  - Grdi-Musa 1 - Grdi- Musa  2 - Grdi-Musa  3 - Grdi-Khoeris  - Grdi-Kamam  - Grdi- Qurashina  - Grdi-Kundu).