The Archaeology of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Adjacent Regions

Kurdistan is home to some of the most important
archaeological sites in the world, ranging from the Stone Age to the most
recent past. While in earlier decades this exceptional potential did not
receive the degree of attention which it merited, the past ten years has seen a
burgeoning of cutting edge archaeological field projects across the region.
This volume, the outcome of a conference held at the University of Athens in
November 2013, presents the results of this research. For the first time the
archaeological inventory of the region is being systematically documented,
laying the foundations for intensive study of the region’s settlement history.
At the same time the area has seen a flourishing of excavations investigating
every phase of human occupation. Together these endeavours are generating basic
new data which is leading to a new understanding of the arrival of mankind, the
development of agriculture, the emergence of cities, the evolution of complex
societies and the forging of the great empires in this crucible of mankind. The
burgeoning of archaeological research in the Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq
is one of the great success stories of world archaeology today. For twenty
years it was impossible for western archaeologists to work in Iraq, and for
most of this time there were also heavy restrictions on the activity of Iraqi
archaeologists. In addition to this Kurdistan remains a region never
systematically explored. The conference presented the first opportunity for the
leading figures in this renaissance of research in the area to gather and
present all the key new projects which are revolutionising our understanding of
the region.

Dr. Konstantinos Kopanias studied at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Paris- Lodron University of Salzburg and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Athens, as adjunct faculty at the University of Crete and as an Allgemeiner Referent at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens.

Dr. John MacGinnis did both his degree and his PhD at Cambridge University and is a specialist in the archaeology and inscriptions of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, on which he has published extensively. He has worked on sites across the middle east, including Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Sudan and Turkey.