Kurdish team unearth large archeological site near Iraq’s biggest dam

Kurdish team unearth large archeological site near Iraq’s biggest dam
——————————-
A team of Kurdish archaeologists in Duhok province has found a cemetery with at least 40 graves near the Mosul Dam, Rudaw reported quoting the head of the team, Bekas Brifkani. The discovery was made after a significant drop in the dam’s water level due to a severe drought. The graves and pottery found at the site are believed to date back to the Hellenistic period, which spans from roughly 323 BCE to 31 BCE.

The newly discovered site is located behind the Old Khanke village in the Semel district of Duhok province. According to Brifkani, the Mosul Dam’s construction in 1986 submerged numerous archaeological sites, and a drop in water levels has led to the surfacing of several such sites since 2018. This is the third time in the past 50 years the water level has fallen so noticeably. In 2023, a Yazidi village emerged, and a school in Khanke, which was submerged for over four decades, reappeared in July of this year.

The Mosul Dam, located in northern Iraq’s Nineveh province, can store up to 11 billion cubic meters of water, which is used for agriculture, residential use, and hydropower generation. The dam became operational in 1986.