The Sebittu Project: A Report on the 2023 Pilot Season

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The preliminary season of the Sebittu Project on the Erbil Plain of Iraqi Kurdistan was conducted over four weeks this summer. The project includes seven Neo-Assyrian sites on the plain with the goal of documenting the agrarian economy during the Neo-Assyrian period (c. 900-600 BC) in northern Iraq, the heartland of the Assyrian empire. The initial identification of the sites was part of the larger Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (EPAS) headed by Jason Ur when documenting over 900 sites via pedestrian survey over several field seasons. This survey data led to the choice of seven clustered sites not only due to their proximity to one another but also the high percentages of clear Neo-Assyrian ceramic material.

These seven sites include ancient villages, hamlets and farmsteads located in the Erbil Directorate of the modern Kurdish Autonomous Region (KRI). The 2023 preliminary season included both pedestrian and geophysical survey, at two sites, as well as a test excavation trench. This work was done to explore the feasibility of working at small, flat sites within agricultural zones in the region. The results from this season, as well as implications for further fieldwork and research will be discussed here.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40066.0