ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Archaeologists have uncovered seven Parthian-era tombs, including a clay coffin containing a small figurine of a pregnant woman, during a two-month excavation in Koya, the Kurdistan Region’s antiquities affairs said Monday.
The discoveries were made in the Khazna area near Gomasheen village along the new Erbil-Koya road in Erbil province, during work carried out from late April to late June. They are now protected in the Directorate of Antiquities and Heritage in Koya, Muhammad Lashkri, director of antiquities and heritage affairs in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw's Zhivan Bakr.
"One of the graves contained a clay coffin with a small headless figurine of a pregnant woman,” along with bracelets, earrings and cosmetic items, Lashkri said.
The finds provide information about the wealth and customs of people who lived during the Parthian era spanning 247 BCE to 224 CE. Parthians are an Iranic people originating from the northeast of the Caspian Sea and share deep linguistic, geographical and historical ties with modern-day Kurds and Iranians as part of the same Indo-Iranian branch in the broader Indo-European family.
Since 2009, foreign archaeological teams have carried out 19 major surveys in the Kurdistan Region covering roughly 55 percent of the region’s territory, with around 6,500 recorded archaeological sites, according to Lashkri.
“Forty-five percent remains,” he said, attributing the delay to political issues, sites located in border areas and disputed territories covered by Article 140 of Iraq’s Constitution.
Lashkri said the antiquities directorate utilizes GIS, satellite imagery and other advanced technology to resurvey archaeological sites, which “have enabled us to accurately identify 75 percent of the sites.”
The region holds promise for the discovery of further archaeological remains from different periods of Mesopotamian and Near Eastern history in areas which have yet to be surveyed.
Lashkri said between 25 and 35 foreign archaeological teams normally conduct surveys and excavations in the Kurdistan Region each year, but most were unable to return this year due to the Iran-US war.
“Some teams are taking on new work, while others are completing their projects,” he said. “There is a team that has been working at an archaeological site for more than 10 years.”
Among the foreign missions working in the region is a Harvard University team that has been conducting fieldwork in the Erbil plain for more than a decade.
French, German, British, Czech and Danish teams are also active, while Japanese teams are conducting excavations at Yasin Tepe and Chwarstu in Sulaimani province according to Lashkri.
Shanidar Cave in Erbil province is identified as the oldest archaeological site in the Kurdistan Region and “contains 100,000-year-old artifacts and 75,000-year-old skeletons,” some of which are preserved in museums in Baghdad and the United States, he said.
The region’s archaeological record includes sites spanning prehistoric settlements and the Assyrian, Babylonian, Median, Persian, Hellenistic, Roman and Sassanid periods.
Lashkri underscored the importance of developing archaeological sites as tourism destinations to generate revenue as a source of investment for future restoration.
“We need to turn our archaeological sites into a source of tourism revenue,” he said, calling for greater efforts to document landmarks, create digital databases for long-term heritage management and preserve the region's history.
The Kurdistan Regional Government’s antiquities authorities oversee archaeological surveys, excavations and the preservation of heritage sites, while international archaeological missions continue to work across the region.
