The Site of Gird Qalachogan, Iraqi Kurdistan: Salvage Excavations and Survey

ARCHAEOLOGYLONDON-- Construction has begun on a Tigris River dam that will flood dozens of important archaeological sites in northern Iraq, including the ancient royal capital of Assyria. A senior Iraqi antiquities official attending a scientific meeting here last week pleaded for international help in salvage excavations, but researchers say there may be too little time and too much politics to save more than a fraction of the Assyrian heartland before the floodwaters finish rising in 2007.

The bituminous mixtures of Kavuşan Höyük (SE Turkey) from the end of the 3rd millennium (2000 BC) to the Medieval period (AD 14th century): Composition and origin

This is the second article in a series detailing archaeological results from salvage excavations conducted in northern Iraq during the 1980s and early 1990s. An introduction and background information to the overall salvage project and specific information on fifteen excavated sites in the northern Jazirah, near the Iraq-Syria border and mostly within T. J. Wilkinson and D. J. Tucker's North Jazira Survey (NJS; see Wilkinson and Tucker 1995), were provided in the first article (Altaweel 2006). In that article the project was called the Ray Jazirah Project (RJP), and the fifteen sites were referenced as RJP 1–15. Since then I have been informed that a more appropriate name is the Jazirah Salvage Project. Nevertheless, for consistency with the last and future articles, the RJP initials will be maintained for referencing archaeological sites and the project in general.This report provides data for the second set of excavated sites in the North region of the RJP. As in the first article, my role has been to provide this information to a wider audience prior to publication in Arabic and to conduct comparative analysis of the source material with other archaeological sites. I have attempted to maintain fidelity to the original source material, including using Iraqi conventions such as the system of numbering levels and ceramics, with only my commentary added to help in the interpretation of the data. In a similar manner to the previous report, very detailed descriptions on any one site will not be provided; rather, the primary purpose is to give summary data on the excavation results, with significant emphasis, where possible, on the ceramic remains. A list of the sites' occupation history and a table listing RJP sites with corresponding NJS sites (Table 1) are provided prior to the discussion of archaeological results. This report includes some additional details from a previously discussed site (RJP 5). The new sites discussed, including the first fifteen sites in the earlier article, can be seen in Fig. 1 according to their RJP numbers.

Ginnig is a small prehistoric site in the north Jazira of Iraq, the uppermost level of which was the subject of rescue excavation. Although the excavations were limited, most of one building of unusual architecture was discovered, with possible ritual "opening" and "closing" deposits although the rest of its contents seem domestic in nature. Along with it, a corpus of material was recovered which is of great interest. The ceramic material is related to early Ceramic Neolithic sites of the Umm Dabaghiyah type but appears likely to predate them while the chipped stone assemblage finds its best parallels in Aceramic Neolithic sites. This raises questions regarding the possibility of continuity between the Ceramic and Aceramic Neolithic in this area and the nature of such a transition.

The elusive Ninevite 5 culture is one of the least known cultures of the ancient Near East despite its wide geographical distribution over the whole of northern Iraq and the Habur plains in northeast Syria. Recent rescue excavations along the Tigris River north of Mosul have produced a more precise ceramic sequence for this period and have cast doubt on some earlier assumptions about the origin and development of Ninevite 5 pottery.' Excavations at Tell Mohammed Arab in the Sad-