A Massive Bronze Age City Unearthed In Northern Iraq

The archeologists discovered a significant massive Bronze Age city near the town of Dohuk in northern Iraq. Currently, the settlement is home to the small Kurdish village of Bassetki in the Autonomous region of Kurdistan, which was founded around 3000 BC and flourish for over 1200 years.

Bronze Age City Discovered in Northern Iraq https://t.co/U05kVZfPKz pic.twitter.com/xrsacoWpuI

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The excavation was led by researchers from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tubingen. It was funded by Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The lead researchers are Dr. Hasan Qasim from the Directorate of Antiquities in Dohuk and Professor Peter Pfalzner from the University of Tubingen. They conducted the excavation work in Bassetki between August and October 2016, according to Science Daily.

Significant Bronze Age city discovered in Northern Iraqhttps://t.co/1hX8BYq9J8 pic.twitter.com/IuHZrL447r — HeritageDaily (@HeritageDaily) November 4, 2016

The team also found settlement layers during the Akkadian Empire period (2340-2200 BC). This was considered the first world empire in human history. They also uncovered fragments of Assyrian cuneiform tablets dated back around 1300 BC. This indicates the existence of a temple devoted to Adad, the Mesopotamian weather god.

The discovery includes also a lower town about one kilometer long located outside the city center. They also found an extensive road network, grand houses, residential districts and a kind of palatial building during the Bronze Age. There was also a cemetery situated outside the city. Meanwhile, the settlement was linked to the areas of Anatolia and Mesopotamia via an overland roadway dated back around 1800 BC.

Professor Peter Pfälzner, Director of the Department of Near Eastern Archaeology at the IANES of the University of Tübingen said that the area around Bassetki is proving to be an unexpectedly rich cultural region. It was located at the crossroads of communication ways between the Mesopotamian, Syrian and Anatolian cultures during the Bronze Age. He further said that they are planning to build a long-term archaeological research project in the region in conjunction with our Kurdish colleagues."

The region of Bassetki derived from the Bassetki Statue, which is a monument from the Akkadian period dated back around 2350 to 2100 BCE. This statue was a bronze figure of the Akkadian god-king Naram-Sin (about 2250 BC). It was stolen from the Iraq museum in 2003 and later on recovered and returned to the museum.