The 2021 and 2022 Excavation Campaigns of the Peshdar Plain Project in the Lower Town of the Iron Age Dinka Settlement Complex on the Eastern Frontier of the Assyrian Empire

Kreppner, Florian Janoscha; Rohde, Jens; Coster, Tarik; Willis, Tarik

Abstract

The Peshdar Plain Project has focused its excavation activities in 2021 and 2022 on the lower town of the Iron Age Dinka Settlement Complex. The site is located approximately 5km south of the district town of Qaladze in the Peshdar Plain in the Zagros Mountains on the upper reaches of the Lower Zab River in the Sulaymaniyah Province in Iraqi Kurdistan immediately adjacent to the border with Iran. The heyday of the multi-period site begins in Iron Age I (1250-1050 BCE) and reaches its largest settlement extent of c. 60ha in Iron Age II (1050-800 BCE) already before the Assyrian annexation of the Peshdar Plain in Iron Age III (800-550 BCE). The target of the 2021 and 2022 excavations was a complex of several buildings situated on the northern edge of the lower town somewhat apart and separated by an open space from the small-scale residential houses and workshops. The 700m2 Building L and the 330m2 Building K provide important new insights into the living environments of people in the early 1st millennium BCE in the northern Zagros Mountains, their social organisation and material culture.