Excavations in Iraq, 1985–86

Extract

During 1985 and 1986, work in the Saddam Dam Salvage Project in the Tigris valley north of Mosul continued, although by now, with the filling of the reservoir to virtually its greatest extent, almost all the sites are under water, with the exception of a handful which are unlikely to be flooded after all. A considerable amount of exciting work was carried out at research excavations in other areas of the country also.

As always, we are grateful to Dr. Mu'ayyad Sa‘id Damerji, Director-General of the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage, for permission to publish in Iraq these short reports, especially those concerning sites in the rescue project sponsored by the Iraq Government. We should like to thank also Dr. Abdul-Sattar al-Azzawi, Dr. Muhammad Baqir al-Husaini, Sd. Abdul-Qadir Hassan and other members of the Department's staff for the assistance they have rendered. Our greatest debt is to the excavators, who have liberally communicated information about their discoveries in advance of their own publication. We apologise for any errors we may have made in summarising their results.

The reports from the Saddam Dam Salvage Project have been collected by Warwick Ball, and those from other areas of the country by Jeremy Black, from information supplied directly by the excavators, amplified in many cases by personal visits to the sites.