Ruins of Hindu Mittani Empire in Iraq
In Iraq 3,400-Year Old Ruins of Mittani
Empire were discovered. Mittani rulers were Hindu.
A 3,400-year-old palace emerged from a reservoir in the Kurdistan region
of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought. The discovery of the ruins in the Mosul Dam reservoir
on the banks of the Tigris River inspired an archeological excavation. The dig
that may improve understanding of the Mittani Empire, one of the empires of the
Ancient Near East. It was one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the
region in recent decades.
The palace would have
originally stood just 65 feet from the river on an elevated terrace. A terrace
wall of mud bricks was later added to stabilize the building, adding to to the
imposing architecture. Ivana Puljiz, an archeologist from the University of Tübingen's
Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, describes the palace, known as
Kemune, as a carefully designed building with mud-brick walls up to two meters
(6.6 feet) thick. Some of the walls are more than two meters high, and various rooms
have plastered walls, she added. The team also found wall paintings in shades of red and blue,
which were probably a common feature of palaces at the time but have rarely
been found preserved. "Discovering wall paintings in Kemune is an archaeological
sensation," she said in a press release. Kemune is only the second site in the region where wall paintings
of the Mittani period have been discovered.
Ten clay tablets covered in
cuneiform, an ancient system of writing, were also discovered. The texts can be source
of knowledge of the inner structure of the Mittani empire, its economic
organisation, and the relationship of the Mittani capital with the other
centers in the neighboring regions.
Archeologists first became aware of the site in 2010 when water
levels in the reservoir were low, but this is the first time they have been
able to excavate. The site has been submerged again. When the site will be available
to explore again is uncertain.
A
Bronze Age city
In
another project with the University of Tübingen, uncovering a Bronze Age city
in northern Iraq in 2016 the
team unearthed the city, which lies beneath what is now the small village of
Bassetki in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, close to territory that was
held by ISIS. Days
after the dig was completed, Iraqi security forces began their push to take
Mosul back from ISIS.
Measuring
a kilometer in length and 500 meters across (about 1,000 yards by roughly 550
yards), the ancient urban area features grand houses, a palace, an extensive
road network and a cemetery.
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