Search results for " Iraq"
showing 10 items of 11 documents
Social Lives of Monumental Walls: Hunting along the Upper Tigris
2021
On the left bank of the Tigris in northern Iraq, in an area today partially flooded by the Mosul Dam reservoir, lies an enigmatic monumental enclosure known in the literature as the “Tigris Wall.” Before its partial submersion under the waters of the modern lake, the large L-shaped embankment, about 4 × 4 km long, enclosed an area of ca. 1600 ha, overlooking the Tigris and its alluvial plain. By means of a holistic strategy that includes different levels of analysis (remote sensing, pedestrian and UAV photogrammetric surveys, excavation, and settlement pattern analysis), this paper addresses the structure, its context, and its environment. Relying on the results of this multi-disciplinary a…
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Survey with Commercial-Grade Instruments: A Case Study from the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey, Iraq
2018
Low-altitude photography in archaeology is now common practice at the scale of excavations; however, landscape-scale applications are a relatively new endeavor with promising analytical potential. From 2014–2016, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a mounted camera was used to document sites recorded as part of the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey (EḪAS), an archaeological reconnaissance project in western Dohuk Province, Iraqi Kurdistan. The EḪAS team documented over 70 archaeological sites with the UAV, from single-phase artifact scatters, to archaeological remains with standing architecture, to tells that cover more than 30 hectares. Representative examples from this survey are pres…
Drowned Landscapes: The Rediscovered Archaeological Heritage of the Mosul Dam Reservoir
2023
Like natural catastrophes or armed conflicts, resource extraction projects herald the alteration or destruction of natural and cultural landscapes alike. Dam construction is a major threat to cultural heritage in Western Asian archaeology. One event may result in obliterating hundreds of sites, most of which never reappear or do so only sporadically following cyclical water fluctuation. Destruction of sites remains ongoing, necessitating constant assessment of damage and the establishment of strategies of documentation and maintenance. This paper proposes a new paradigm for future safeguarding and, more widely, a new tool for managing contiguous terrestrial and lacustrine cultural zones. It…
First Results of the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey in the Dohuk Region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Season of 2013
2015
The University of Tübingen began an archaeological survey in the westernmost part of the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq, in the province of Dohuk, in 2013. The survey area covers highly diverse ecological zones from the Tigris across the East-Tigridian plain to the high Zagros ranges along the border with Turkey. Historically, the region witnessed the expansion of Mesopotamian states since the 3rd mill. BC and was a border region between Assyria and Urartu in the 1st mill. BC.
‘The Iraq War Momentum’ in the Struggle on the Powers of the US Congress
2019
How parliaments and legislatures participate in war-making has raised interest among researchers from different disciplines, including constitutional law and political science. While war powers are usually considered to be included in the field of the executive branch, parliaments have played an increasingly relevant role as more democratic decision-making in both normal and exceptional times has gained prominence. The comparative aspect to examine war powers between parliaments or between the branches of government is often adopted to describe the authority and legitimacy of these powers. The US Congress is considered to have strong war powers on paper compared to parliaments in other libe…
Pots and places in the Late Chalcolithic period. A view from the Eastern Ḫabur Region
2019
This paper attempts to contextualise the preliminary results of a survey (EHAS) and excavation (KUGAMID) projects recently undertaken by a team of the University of Tübingen in the uppermost region of Iraqi Kurdistan as far as the Late Chalcolithic period is concerned. Settlement patterns and land use, stratigraphic sequences and pottery assemblages are considered here in order to shed light on the dynamics of the emergence of social complexity and the establishment of proto-urban trajectories along the river banks, riverine plains, foothills and mountain valleys of the foothills of Zagros. Preliminary results suggest that the process of urbanisation in this area seems to be connected with …
Report on the first season of German-Kurdish excavations at Muqable in 2015
2017
In 2015, a new excavation project entitled “Kurdish-German Archaeological Mission in Dohuk” (KUGAMID) was launched. It is organized as a joint project between the University of Tübingen and the Department of Antiquities of Dohuk and is jointly directed by Peter Pfälzner (Tübingen) and Hassan Ahmad Qasim (Dohuk). Three sites were selected for excavation: Bassetki, Muqable I and Muqable III. The following report will summarize the results of the first season of excavations at the two neighbouring mounds of Muqable I and Muqable III, located approximately 5 km southeast of Bassetki and 23 km west of Dohuk in the Autonomous Region of Kurdistan in Iraq. The first season of excavations at Muqable…
L'Infedele / Ali Bader
2019
L'Infedele è la storia di Fatima-Sophie, una giovane donna che vive a Bruxelles ma proviene da un imprecisato villaggio arabo situato ai bordi del deserto, dove la vita è segnata da numerosi episodi di sopraffazione maschilista e di fanatismo religioso. A Bruxelles inizia la vita "europea" della protagonista, che incontra Adrian, un giovane scandinavo, con alle spalle un passato assai misterioso. Alla fine l'incontro tra Sophie e Adrian finirà con l'essere una sorta di resa dei conti non solo di carattere personale, ma anche delle rispettive culture.
Between Symphony and Novel: 'Ali Badr's Haris al-Tabg (The Tobacco Keeper)
2013
Over the course of the last decades scholars have shown a growing interest in the link between narrative and music, and “Musico-literary” is currently an emergent discipline among comparatists and literary critics. Concerning Arab narrative, it is possible to identify the influence of music on some contemporary fictional works. In this study I will try to analyse Ḥāris al-tabġ (The Tobacco Keeper, 2008), a novel written by the Iraqi novelist ‘Alī Badr. The novel retraces the history of Iraq since the 40’s through the biography of an outstanding violinist who represents only a facet of a triple personality. The novel is deeply influenced by Fernando Pessoa’s poetics, and is conceived and str…
Il declino delle destinazioni turistiche
2015
Il saggio, partendo dal noto ciclo di vita delle destinazioni turistiche elaborato da Richard Butler nel 1980, riflette sul destino turistico e sulle potenzialità di territori ancora oggi percepiti come pericolosi (Iraq, Sri Lanka, Vietnam). The essay, starting from the well-known life cycle of tourist destinations elaborated by Richard Butler in 1980, reflects on the tourist destiny and on the potential of territories still today perceived as dangerous (Iraq, Sri Lanka, Vietnam).