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En Ku Ar

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 calendar2024-05-26

The publication of archaeological and educational education by the excavation team in Ashkawta Rash

The publication of archaeological and educational education by the excavation team in Ashkawta Rash After about two seasons of work in the black cave (Alla Quli) located on the border of the same village in the town of Bardaqaraman. The team، consisting of the British University of Liverpool and the Sulaymaniyah Directorate of Archaeology and Heritage, represented by the archaeologist Amanj Hama Amin Rahim,

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.

Archäologisch-geophysikalische Prospektion am Rande des Zagrosgebirges in Kurdistan

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Im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojektes begab sich ein bayerisches Prospekti onsteam im Oktober des vergangenen Jahres auf eine Forschungsexpedition in den Nordostirak, enauer in die süd kurdischen Provinzen Sulaymaniyah und Halabjah. Hier in der Shahrizor Ebene, nahe der irakisch-iranischen Grenze, sollten an drei Fundorten Un
tersuchungen durchgeführt werden. 

Das Projekt fand in Kooperation zwischen dem Antikendienst Sulaymani yah, dem Bayerischen Landesamt für Denkmalpl ege sowie den Instituten für Vorderasiatische Archäologie und dem Department für Geowissenschaften der Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München stat . Bereits im Jahre 2000/01 konnten Mitarbeiter dieses Teams im Süden des Landes große Bereiche der legendären Stadt Uruk vermessen – mit spektakulären Forschungsergebnissen (DI 122, 2002). Auch hier war es Ziel gewesen, die Möglichkeiten der Pros pektionstechniken auf mehrphasigen Siedlungshügeln, also im schwierigen Gelände, durch Magnetometer-Messun gen zu erproben, weiterzuentwickeln und anhand dieser Messungen archäo logische Pläne zu erstellen.