Russian archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old settlement in southern Iraq

Russian archaeologists in Iraq have discovered what they believe to be the remains of a 4,000-year-old settlement that emerged from the ashes of the Babylonian Empire.

The “Lost City” was discovered on June 24 in The Car, Iraq, the heart of the ancient Sumerian Empire, considered one of the world’s first civilizations.

“The discovered city is an urban settlement in Del Duhaila, located on the banks of a stream,” Alexei Yankovsky-Dygonov, researcher at the St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Manuscripts and head of the Archaeological Department, told Al Monitor.

The team found a number of artifacts, including a rusty arrow, traces of stoves, and prehistoric clay camel statues.

They found the remains of a temple wall seven feet high and 13 feet wide, and an ancient harbor where river and sea ships came from.

Keith Salem al-Monitor, a professor of ancient history at the University of Al-Mustanziria, told Al-Monitor: “This latest discovery introduces to the world one of the Sumerian cities that never saw the harbor. Most cities were lost to the sea, but today they have become a vast desert.”

The Yankovsky-Tykonov team began their research in 2019 with real fieldwork in April 2021. “The city may have been the capital of a state established in the aftermath of the political decline of the late Babylonian period,” Jankovsky-Diagonov speculated. Second Millennium.

He said the search for cities in southern Mesopotamia at the end of the ancient Babylonian era – particularly the site of del al-Duhaila – unravels the mystery of an unknown side in the history of the planet’s oldest civilization.

The site provides evidence for the early agricultural use of the office in Mesopotamia prior to the arrival of the Sumerian civilization.

Aluviyam is the granular soil that remains on the banks of rivers – its existence allowed crops to be grown in the arid, arid region, which later became known as the fertile crescent.

Yankovsky-Diegonov said the site had been untouchable throughout this time, and he expected to find cuneiform documents “in a quiet archaeological environment.”

The director of archeology at The Car, Amar Abdul Razak, said the site’s prehistoric landscapes of the site date back to pre-Babylonian times, but more than that, given the pieces of pottery and the statues discovered by Russian work.