Unearthing the Dinka Settlement Complex: The 2016 Season at Gird-i Bazar and Qalat-i Dinka

Abstract

This second volume of the series Peshdar Plain Project Publications presents the 2016 activities of the Peshdar Plain Project, with new data for the occupation of the Bora Plain on the upper reaches of the Lesser Zab near the modern district centre of Qaladze in the Neo-Assyrian and Sassanian periods. The book details the results of the first test excavations at the citadel of Qalat-i Dinka and of the on-going excavations at the settlement quarter of Gird-i Bazar. Here, a continuous excavated area of 625 m2 has been uncovered, occupied by several well-appointed multi-room houses with courtyards, wells and drainage systems and an open area around a pottery kiln, which was found complete with its last load. The book also presents the results of the geophysical exploration of the Bora Plain: on the one hand, the continuation of the magnetometer survey of the entire Neo-Assyrian settlement, now recognised to be a complex of at least 60 hectares, and on the other hand, the new electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) investigations of the ancient qanat irrigation system that seems to be connected to the Neo-Assyrian settlement. Three chapters on the pottery of Gird-i Bazar present a first overview of the attested chaines operatoires, the updated fabric classification on the basis of thin section petrography analysis and the first results of the residue analysis performed on a selection of vessels. Another chapter is devoted to the small finds of the Neo-Assyrian occupation. A chapter on the bioarchaeology of Gird-i Bazar presents preliminary results of the analysis of the animal bones and of the palaeobotanical remains from the Neo-Assyrian settlement and discusses the Sassanian-period graveyard, now dated by 14C analysis, on top of the ruins of the Neo-Assyrian occupation. The print edition of the book is available from PeWe-Verlag: www.pewe-verlag.de