Iraq drought reveals 3,400-year-old palace hidden in reservoir
June 30, 2019– Mary Greeley News – A 3,400-year-old palace has been uncovered in a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after a drought caused water levels to drop dramatically.
A Kurdish-German team of archeologists from the University of Tübingen and the Kurdistan Archaeology Organization made the discovery in the Mosul Dam reservoir, on the banks of the Tigris River.
According to a press release, the Kemune Palace can be dated to the time of the Mittani Empire, which dominated large parts of northern Mesopotamia and Syria from the 15th to the 14th century BC.
Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from c. 1500 to 1300 BC.
“The find is one of the most important archeological discoveries in the region in recent decades and illustrates the success of the Kurdish-German co-operation,” Kurdish archeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim said in a press release.
The site was first discovered in 2010 when the water level in the reservoir was low, however this is the first time the team has been able to excavate.
The area was flooded after the Mosul Dam was constructed in the mid-1980s, but a lack of rain and water in southern Iraq caused the water level to drop during the summer and autumn of last year.
Ivana Puljiz from the Tübingen Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) said the site shows a carefully designed building with massive interior mud-brick walls, some up to two meters thick.
Some of the walls are more than two meters high and some are made of plaster, Puljiz said.
“We have also found remains of wall paintings in bright shades of red and blue,” Puljiz said in a press release. “In the second millennium BCE, murals were probably a typical feature of palaces in the Ancient Near East, but we rarely find them preserved.”
“Discovering wall paintings in Kemune is an archeological sensation.”
Inside the palace, the team identified a number of rooms and were able to partially excavate eight of them.
The team also discovered 10 clay tablets, which are in the process of being translated.
In ancient times, the palace would have stood on an elevated terrace above the valley, only 20 meters from what was then the eastern bank of the Tigris River.
“In the Mittani period, a monumental terrace wall of mud bricks was built against the palace’s western front to stabilize the sloping terrain,” the press release reads. “Overlooking the Tigris Valley, the palace must have been an impressive sight.”
According to the researchers, the Mittani Empire is one of the least researched kingdoms of the Ancient Near East.
Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon and a series of ineffectual Assyrian kings created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia.
At the beginning of its history, Mitanni’s major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite Empire, Mitanni and Egypt struck an alliance to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centered on its capital, Washukanni, whose location has been determined by archaeologists to be on the headwaters of the Khabur River.
The Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c. 1475 and c. 1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire.
“Discovering wall paintings in Kemune is an archeological sensation.”
credit: In part with https://globalnews.ca/news/5446140/ancient-palace-discovered-iraq/?utm_source=Other&utm_medium=MostPopular&utm_campaign=2014
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