Early Bronze Age in Iraqi Kurdistan

Since the beginning of the 2000s, more than sixty projects have been exploring Northern Mesopotamia in the Iraqi Kurdistan area, mainly on sites dating to the fourth and first millennia, leading to numerous discoveries in the Chalcolithic and Neo-Assyrian periods. In contrast, although there are data on the 3rd millennium, corresponding to the Early Bronze Age, they are much more diverse and difficult to evaluate. Yet, this period represents a key moment in the history of the Ancient Near East, witnessing a major political upheaval: the progress from small, independent city-states to a territorial unification under the Akkadian dynasty, around 2300 BC, and the birth of the first empire, around 2100 BC. While our understanding of the creation and the evolution of these territorial hegemonies is very largely based on texts that were left by the kings who created them and on the results of excavations in Southern Mesopotamia, much of the period in Northern Mesopotamia remains unknown, as well as the societies living in those fertile valleys and the Zagros piedmont.

This book gathers together data on the Early Bronze Age in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Between extensive survey and excavations programs, the newly acquired archaeological data are now shedding light on this northern area, long considered peripheral to the great city-states of Southern Mesopotamia. Organized into four parts, the book features some twenty contributions that look at the occupation dynamics of macro-regions, urban phenomena, iconography, material culture and ceramic production. These data now enable the production of an overview of settlement patterns and cultural trends in this part of Northern Mesopotamia, which tends to show that the region of present-day Iraqi Kurdistan was neither deserted nor inactive on the political scene, and was in intense contact with neighboring territories.