DUHOK, Kurdistan Region — A team of Kurdish and Italian archaeologists believe they are on track to proving the site of Nurrugum in southeastern Duhok province is what scholars already recognize as Gomel that has been settled for at least nine millennia.
“Since it was settled especially during the first half of the second millennium BC, I suspect that Nurruguma could be identified with Guagamela. But we cannot prove it yet,” said Professor Daniele Morandi Bonacossi at a press conference on October 9 to report the team’s 2018 excavation findings from the plain of Navkur.
Guagamela (or Tel Gomel/Gammagara/Gir-e Gomel) is located 52 kilometers northwest of the Kurdistan Region’s capital city of Erbil near Bardarash. Inhabitation can be proven in the Neolithic Period and continues up to the Ottoman Period and present day, making it one of the oldest continuously-inhabited sites in the region — dating at least 9,000 years.
The team hopes in the future to prove the link with a discovery of cuneiform tablets like their German colleagues did in Mardaman, said Morandi Bonacossi, a professor in the Department of Humanities and Cultural Heritage at the University of Udine.
During the dry late summer season, teams of archaeologists from around the world have flocked to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region following the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime.
“We know from the Syriac manuscripts of the 12th century AD that the name of Guagamela at those times 800 years ago was Gogomel. The modern name of the site is Gomel,” said Morandi Bonacossi.
“There is a direct link from the linguistic point-of-view between the modern name of the site and the Syriac, the Greek, and the Assyrian name," he added.
They believe Guagamela was probably called Gammagara in the Neo-Assyrian (about 1000-612 BC) and later periods. The latter name has been found on inscriptions on the Jerwan Aqueduct in present-day northern Nineveh province, where Assyrian King Sennacherib built the Atrush Canal to bring water to his empire.
Image: LoNAP
"(I am) Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria. For a long distance, adding to it the water of the two Ḫazur Rivers, the water of the river Pulpullia, the water of the town Ḫanusa, the water of the town Gammagara, (and) the water of the mountain springs to the right and left at its sides, I had a canal dug to the meadows of Nineveh. Over deep-cut wadis, I had a bridge of white stone blocks made, (and) those waters I caused to pass over it,” reads the inscription.
“This was one of the most important battles of ancient times because it marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period and then the collapse of the Persian Empire and the rise of the large empire of Alexander the Great,” said Morandi Bonacossi. “The largest empire in the world at those times.”
Bones dating from an Early Bronze Age (2600-2350 BC) cemetery at the Operation 1 site. Photo: LoNAP
They had three operations in 2018. One covered the Early Bronze Age (2600 BC) that spanned into the late 20th century AD.
“What is very interesting is that this area used to be cemetery, the necropolis, the burial place of the dead people from the city of Guagamela,” said Morandi Bonacossi.
All of the bodies discovered were accompanied by vessels containing offerings for the dead including the cooked bones of sheep and birds.
“These are the graves that we have found and they are very interesting graves because they are cremation burials, which are not very typical for the Assyrian period because typical Assyrian were inhumations (grave burials) — simple pits in the soil in which the body was placed," explained Morandi Bonacossi.
As they dug, Morandi Bonacossi's team discovered more burial sites: “And underneath the cemetery of the Assyrian period we have found another more monumental cemetery made with graves made of bricks, which dates between 1700-1550 BC."
It contains a vaulted burial chamber “particularly rich and particularly large.”
Under that grave, they discovered another cemetery dating to the Early Bronze Age (2600-2300 BC).
“This is a very important period for us archaeologists because it is the period in which all this region of northern Iraq, large urban centers, very big cities emerged," said Morandi Bonacossi.
"In these cities there were local urban elite who controlled the government of these large towns. These people were buried in the cemetery that we are excavating now. This is the most important grave that we have found this year."
They took soil samples back to Italy to carry out chemical analysis in hopes of understanding what type of food the vessels contained. When archaeologists understand the diet of peoples, they can hypothesize and prove how they lived, whether they were nomadic or agrarian, etc.
A vaulted and at the time costly burial chamber discovered during the dig. Photo: LoNAP
“It must have been for an important person in the city,” he said. “Baked bricks at that time were a very expensive building material because normally buildings were built using sun-dried bricks.”
The archaeologists have worked more closely with officials in Kurdistan after the events of October 16, 2017, as security remains a concern in disputed areas of Nineveh.
“We have started this joint Italian-Kurdish expedition with our friends,” emphasized Morandi Bonacossi, naming tens of individuals from the Kurdistan Region who have worked on the project.
Bonacossi Morandi directs the Land of Nineveh Archaeological Project (LoNAP) that involves the Kurdistan Regional Government, including Duhok Province's Directorate of Antiquities. His university and the Italian Embassy in Baghdad and Consulate in Erbil also support the initiative.
"Fortunately, the excavations this year produced good results," summarized Hassan Qassim, the director general of Duhok's antiquities directorate.
The second operation spanned the Middle Bronze Age (2000 BC) to the Parthian period (300 AD). The third covered the Late Chalcolithic 1-2 period (4500 BC) to the Middle Assyrian period (1000 BC).
They will return in 2019 and conduct a deeper dig at Gir-e Gomel.
Vessels were found around the bodies in the burial sites. They contained cooked animal bones, believed to be an offering for the dead. Photo: LoNAP
"We all know that Kurdistan's history has been distorted by the occupiers of Kurdistan. It has been rewritten. Our excavations with foreign teams are to reveal the truth of the history and civilization of Kurdistan for all the people of Kurdistan," said Qassim.
Guagamela "was particularly important in the period between 2,500-2,000 BC and between 2,000-1,600 BC," according to Morandi Bonacossi.
“We don’t have very much information, but some beautiful texts which were found in the city of Mari [present day Syria] here and in the city of Shemshara [or Shusharra] here. They give us some information on the history of the region where we are during the first half of the second millennium," said Morandi Bonacossi.
“We know that the region of Duhok during this period was occupied by great kingdoms, the Kingdom of Nurrugum and to the south in the region of Erbil, the Kingdom of Qabra," he added.
Qabra, close to Erbil, is being excavated by a US expedition.
