Specialists have excavated a 3400-year-old city on the Tigris River. The remains of the Bronze Age city had previously been submerged for several decades in the Iraqi Mosul reservoir, whose water level had recently fallen sharply due to extreme drought. This is reported by a German-Kurdish excavation team in a press release from the University of Freiburg. The city could be the old Zachiku, an important center of the Great Empire of Mittani, which had existed between 1550 and 1350 BC.
The south of Iraq in particular was affected by a persistent drought at the end of 2021. In order to continue to water the fields, large amounts of water from the reservoir were drained, the researchers report. As a result, the water level of the lake has dropped so far that the city complex on the edge of the water in Kemune came out again. The excavation took place in early 2022 - before the archaeological site disappeared into the lake again.
Amazingly well-maintained clay structures
The specialists were able to largely reconstruct the city map and relieve some previously unknown large buildings: underneath a massive fastening system, a multi -storey magazine building and a workshop complex. It is astonishing that the buildings from clay bricks are so well preserved, the researchers noted - although the remains had recently been under water for over 40 years. For good condition, a heavy earthquake around 1350 BC. Have taken care of: collapsing walls had buried and preserved among themselves.
In addition, the excavation team discovered five ceramic vessels with an archive made of over 100 cuneiform tablets, which were probably created shortly after the earthquake. Some of these boards were even in sound envelopes. They may be letters. "The fact that the cuneiform boards made of unbroken sound have survived under water for so many decades borders a miracle," says the co -responsible archaeologist Peter Pfälzner from the University of Tübingen in the press release. The cuneiform tablets could provide new knowledge about the end of the sunken city and the beginning of the Assyrian rule in the region.
At the end of the excavation, the scientists took some protective measures: they covered the exposed buildings with a plastic film and covered them with gravel, in the hope of protecting the clay walls from further water damage. In the meantime, the excavation site has completely disappeared into the reservoir again.
The fact that the Mosul reservoir with a falling water level reveals archaeological sites has already happened: In 2018, researchers released the remains of a large palace that once throne above the Tigrristal. A larger city probably joined in the north of the palace. Within the palace rooms, the archaeologists also discovered Mitani cuneiform tables with references to the fact that the town of Kemune was probably the city of Zachiku.
