Excavations at Satu Qala (Erbil, Iraq), identified with the Assyrian provincial capital Idu, highlighted for the first time the role of the region located south-east of Erbil, as a multicultural borderland both between Assyria and Babylonia and between the eastern valley of the Tigris and the region beyond the Zagros. Fieldwork conducted between 2010 and 2013 revealed how Idu, after the collapse of the Middle Assyrian Empire, turned from its provincial status into an independent kingdom, which was ruled for less than two centuries (11th-10th Centuries BCE) by a local dynasty, later to be integrated again since the beginning of the 9th Century BCE into the large imperial periphery first belonging to the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and later to the Achaemenids, to the Seleucids, to the Parthians, and to the Sassanians. Excavations at the site revealed a long settlement process, extending from the 11th millennium BCE to the Middle Islamic Period, and exposed a consistent continuity of occupational phases from the Late Assyrian to the Middle Islamic, providing a clean sequence of material culture from primary contexts. This project, coordinated by the applicant in cooperation with a number of specialists, is aimed to support the final publication, consisting of an edited volume and an online, open-access database of finds, providing great value to the regional chronologies of this region, which remains scarcely investigated.
The publication project is directed by Dr. Cinzia Pappi.
