4 – Significant Bronze Age city discovered in Northern Iraq
Archaeologists from the University of Tübingen perform excavation work just 45 kilometers from IS territory – the settlement may have been an outpost of the Akkadian Empire. Archeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) at the University of Tübingen have uncovered a large Bronze Age city not far from the town of Dohuk in northern Iraq. The excavation work has demonstrated that the settlement, which is now home to the small Kurdish village of Bassetki in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan, was established in about 3000 BC and was able to flourish for more than 1200 years. The archaeologists also discovered settlement layers dating from the Akkadian Empire period (2340-2200 BC), which is regarded as the first world empire in human history. Find out more
Excavating the eastern slope of the upper part of Bassetki, where several fragments of Assyrian cuneiform tablets were discovered. Photo: P. Pfälzner
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/12/top-10-archaeological-discoveries-of-2016/113678