Search for ancient cities, towns, roads etc around Erbil

[Anthea]

Kurdistan Regional Government

Ancient Iraq revealed

After nearly a century away, Harvard archaeology has returned to Iraq.

Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, earlier this year launched a five-year archaeological project — the first such Harvard-led endeavor in the war-torn nation since the early 1930s — to scour a 3,200-square-kilometer area around Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq, for signs of ancient cities and towns, canals, and roads.

Already, Ur said, the effort is paying massive dividends — with some 1,200 potential sites identified in just a few months, and potentially thousands more in the coming years.

“What we’re finding is that this is, hands down, the richest archaeological landscape in the Middle East,” Ur said. “Due to the history of conflict and ethnic strife in this region, there was no work done in this area at all, so it really is a tabula rasa, so it’s a very exciting time.”

FULL STORY:
http://www.krg.org/a/d.aspx?s=010000&l=12&a=46067

[Aslan]

yeaaaaaa boyyyyy thats ma hood they be diggin at peace gangnam style yo awkward silence .... lmao xD

[Piling]

I hope they won't build their 'New Dubai' in Erbil before archeologists excavate all these sites.

[dyaoko]

very very intresting thanks for posting it, moved to history section

[Lepzerin]

Kurdistan in general has a lot of historical artifacts. Unfortunately care nor time has been taken to seriously look at them in the past, and I hope they are not forgotten in this rush to industrialize and grow the Kurdish economy. These kinds of things are important to help see the past of Kurdistan and possibly create another tourist market if these relics are taken into (well-funded and staffed) museums.