The international and interdisciplinary excavation team in front of the excavation area.
Excavation of the University of Münster in the Zagros Mountains of Northern Iraq 2021
© Jens Rohde, Peshdar Plain Projekt

Lifeworlds of the early 1st millennium B.C. in the western Zagrosrand Mountains on the Lower Zab before and after the Assyrian annexation

Project lead and contact person: Prof. Dr. Florian Janoscha Kreppner

Faculty and Department:

Faculty 09 Philology – Institut für Altorientalistik und Vorderasiatische Archäologie

Project duration and funding agency:  2021 to 2024 – German Research Foundation (DFG)

Research question:

For the Zagros region of northern Eastern Iraq and northwestern Iran, a civilian center in the lower town of a large Iron Age settlement before and during the period of the Assyrian takeover is investigated for the first time. The organization of the indigenous society in agriculture and livestock, nutrition and material culture as well as the effects of the imperial Assyrian expansion on the reality of life of the inhabitants of the Dinka settlement complex are in the focus of our interest.

Project Abstract:

  • Targeted excavations in the exposed buildings K, L and M
  • Temporal classification of the foundation, period of use and end of use of the buildings by fine stratigraphic analysis, reconstruction of the building biographies and 14C dating from selected stratigraphic contexts
  • Reconstruction of the functions of the buildings and their importance for the lower town
  • Development of the material culture in the area of conflict between the Assyrian core area and local Zagro cultures as well as in the settlement-internal comparison by systematic investigation of architecture, pottery, small finds and micro artifacts
  • Exploration of the way of nutrition as well as agriculture and animal husbandry through archaeozoological and archaeobotanical analyses, with a focus on the reconstruction of the indigenous landscape and land use system and possible changes due to interventions by the Assyrian annexation process

Digital methods to be used:

  • MySQL database server
  • CMS
  • GIS
  • CAD
  • Structure for motion

Role of SCDH in this project:

  • Great support in creating the conditions for data management at the university
  • Advice on the selection of suitable tools and methods and standards
  • Archiving of data, esp. image and 3D data
  • Networking between individual projects

Link: Peshdar Plain Projekt