The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey: Preliminary Results, 2012–2020

Abstract

The Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) investigates settlement and land use from the Neolithic to the present in the Erbil Governorate of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which includes a large portion of the core of the Assyrian Empire. In seven field seasons, it has documented a broad settlement landscape in a region of great social and political importance, especially in the Bronze and Iron Ages, including 728 archaeological sites. Its field methodology combines traditional surface collection with the use of historical aerial and satellite photographs, mobile GIS, and UAV (drone) photogrammetry. Preliminary results show some unexpected patterns: a high density of culturally Uruk settlements in the fourth millennium B.C., variable urban morphologies in the Early Bronze Age; and large but low-density settlements at the end of the Sasanian period or the early Islamic period. The project is explicitly testing several hypotheses about centralized Neo-Assyrian landscape planning in the imperial core. These hypotheses appear to be confirmed, although the situation was more complex than in surrounding provinces, probably due to the longer history of continuous settlement.

Succeeding CORONA: declassified HEXAGON intelligence imagery for archaeological and historical research

“…2016; Hammer 2022; Ur et al . 2021), and to aid the interpretation of archaeological geophysics data by distinguishing between recent and potentially ancient features (Herrmann & Hammer 2019).…”

“…Indeed, PCS images have already been used by Near Eastern archaeologists to study ancient irrigation systems and settlement patterns (e.g Ur & Reade 2015;Novácěk et al 2016;. Hammer 2022;Ur et al 2021), and to aid the interpretation of archaeological geophysics data by distinguishing between recent and potentially ancient features…”

Kurd Qaburstan on the Erbil Plain: Field Research 2016–2017

“…1 A walled city of c. 95 hectares in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000Age (c. -1600, Kurd Qaburstan is one of the largest Bronze Age archaeological sites in the region of Erbil (Figs. 2-3) (Schwartz et al 2017;Ur et al 2021). 2 Because its main period of occupation was Middle Bronze, it has been proposed that Kurd Qaburstan was ancient Qabra, capital of the Erbil area in the Middle Bronze period (Ur et al 2013).…”

“…The Late Bronze occupation was limited to the high mound and, according to surface survey, an area east of the high mound, perhaps totaling 20 hectares(Ur et al 2021).22 Trench 5138/3051 was extended 4 meters to the west in the middle of the season.23 See similar child burials excavated in 2013-14(Schwartz et al 2017).…”

Irrigation and Landscape Commemoration in Northern Assyria, the Assyrian Canal and Rock Reliefs in Faida (Kurdistan Region of Iraq): Preliminary Report on the 2019 Field Season

“…Their role as infrastructure providing the urban centres and their rural surrounds with water for irrigation and intensified agricultural production has often been rejected (Reade 1978: 174) or downplayed (Masetti-Rouault 2018: 34 and n. 58;Oates 1968: 47-49, 52;Wilkinson 2003: 130). However, fresh archaeological research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has now made it clear that Assyrian hydraulic networks, which ranged from the countryside around Ashur and Arbail between the Upper and Lower Zab rivers and the Neo-Assyrian capital cities and provincial centres in the northern part of the 'Assyrian Triangle' to the Khabur and Middle Euphrates valleys, 1 were primarily economic infrastructures 1 Bagg 2000;Ergenzinger and Kühne 1991;Geyer and Monchambert 2003: 199-217;Jacobsen and Lloyd 1935;Morandi Bonacossi 2018a-b;Mühl 2013: 63-70;Oates 1968: 45-49;Reade 1978;Safar 1947;Ur 2005Ur , 2018; Ur and Reade 2015; Ur et al 2021. with transformative effects on the landscape and staple food production. New evidence for this important and often neglected aspect comes from the excavation of the Faida canal and its rock reliefs in the Duhok Region of Kurdistan, carried out since 2019 by the Kurdish-Italian Faida Archaeological Project jointly conducted by the University of Udine and the Duhok Directorate of Antiquities.…”