By: Merel Brüning, research assistant to Dr. Bleda Düring In 2011, Dr. Bleda Düring of the Faculty of Archaeology in Leiden, obtained a European Research Council Starting Grant for his project “Consolidating Empire – Reconstructing Hegemonic Practices of the Middle Assyrian Empire at the Late Bronze Age Fortified Estate of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria, ca. […]
by: Felix Levenson. The following paper will present a short abstract of the work I will be conducting for my PhD at the Freie Universität Berlin in collaboration with the Excellence Cluster Topoi and the DAI (German Archaeological Institute).
My doctoral dissertation will try to re-evaluate the traditionally used term of ‘monumentality’ in West-Asian Archaeology by contrasting it with the concept of ‘bigness’, thereby showing that size does in fact not matter for monumentality. By the term ‘bigness’ in architecture I mean large or extra-large structures without any notion of their social function.
Interested in finding out more about the excavation of the sources we so desperately need? You are in luck, because the 9th ICAANE, the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East is coming up. The University of Basel, Switzerland, will this year host the congress, from the 9th of June to the 13th. ICAANE is organized once every two years, so do not miss out on this opportunity! Information on the congress can be found in this article, provided by the organization and of course online at http://9icaane.unibas.ch/, where you can find out more about posters, themes and workshops.
The Satu Qala Project 2010-2013
By: Cinzia Pappi. Since 2010, a combined team from the University of Leiden, the University of Leipzig, and the Salahaddin University of Erbil has been conducting excavations at Satu Qala, the ancient city of Idu (van Soldt 2008). The fieldwork continued in 2013 in cooperation with the University of Pennsylvania
This issue, we have taken a somewhat different approach to the “In The Field” section than you have been getting used to. As we were reminded, not just the interaction with other fields such as Archaeology falls under the “In The Field”-category. Travelling to universities and interacting within projects are all part of the hands-on approach that is a part of Assyriology. Therefore, we have asked one PhD student to give some information on what it is like to be working abroad, within a large project.
By: Olivier Rouault, Director and Maria Grazia Masetti-Rouault, Associate Director
Qasr Shemamok, a large site covering more than 70 hectares, is well-known in the landscape of Iraqi Kurdistan. It is situated about 30 km southwest of Erbil, close to the village of Tarjan on the road to Gwer and to the Tigris bank. Formed by a steep tell, an acropolis more than 30 meters higher than the plain, and a lower tell limited by urban walls, it is surrounded by a much larger anthropic surface marked by different ancient occupations In the 19th century, after the visit of this region by Layard, the site was identified as the remains of the ancient city of Kakzu (or Kilizu/Kilizi).
By Jesper Eidem (Director, NINO)
In September-October 2012 The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) initiated a new archaeological project in the Kurdish Region of Iraq, focussed on the Rania Plain in Sulaimanyia Province.