A 3,400-year-old Ancient Palace Unearthed in Iraq

After water levels dropped due to drought, a 3,400-year-old, Bronze Age palace at a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq was unearthed by archaeologists.

The palace was known as Kemune, and it could be traced back to the Mittani Empire. It is said that the Mittani Empire dominated northern Mesopotamia and Syria from the 15th to the 14th century BCE, and that it lost its political significance when its territories were conquered by the Hittites and Assyrians:

A team of German and Kurdish archaeologists made the find on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. They now hope to obtain new information about the politics, economy, and history of the empire — one of the least researched kingdoms of the Ancient Near East — by studying cuneiform tablets discovered in the palace.
“The find is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region in recent decades and illustrates the success of the Kurdish-German cooperation.” said archaeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim, who co-led the mission.
The palace would have originally stood just 65 feet from the river on an elevated terrace. A terrace wall of mud bricks was later added to stabilize the carefully designed building, which overlooked the Tigris Valley.

Photo Credit: University of Tübingen, eScience Center, and Kurdistan Archaeology Organization


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