Gird-i Rostam is a multi-period site in Iraqi Kurdistan occupied from the Chalcolithic period (c. 4400 BC) to late Antiquity (5th-7th cents. AD). After a brief mapping campaign in 2017 excavations began in 2018 as a joint project between ISAW and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich with the enthusiastic support of the Directorate of Antiquities in the Governate of Suleimaniyah and its Director Kamal Rasheed. Co-directed by Dan Potts and Karen Radner (Munich), the project aims to establish a sequence for this little-known, easternmost corner of Kurdistan which lies close to the Iranian border in the Zagros mountains. Die-stamped ceramics with Christian crosses; prehistoric obsidian from sources near Nemrut Dag in Turkey and Syunik in Armenia; painted pottery parallels in Luristan and northern Mesopotamia; and a vessel fragment with a cuneiform inscription naming the dedicant, in all probability of Neo-Assyrian date, already suggest that Gird-i Rostam is going to contribute enormously to our understanding of the prehistory and early history of the Zagros. A full preliminary report on the 2018 season is published in the Dutch journal JEOL (Jaarbericht Ex Oriente Lux) and a second, very successful season was concluded in the summer of 2019 when fortification walls of both the Neo-Assyrian and Sasanian periods were exposed.
Find the project’s official site here.
Specialities utilized: Digital mapping using DGPS; integrated web-based database live in the field (via wifi on site); flotation; faunal and paleobotanical analysis is conducted offsite (in Europe)
Contact: Daniel T. Potts, Director | daniel.potts@nyu.edu
This project accepts students. Interested students should email Daniel Potts to inquire about applying.