Description: The Rowanduz Archaeological Program (RAP) seeks to revitalize archaeology in Iraqi Kurdistan through the implementation of a long-term, integrative program of multidisciplinary archaeological research projects and cultural heritage management initiatives. The area represents one of the most compelling and unknown corners of the Near East — over a century of warfare and political strife have prevented most archaeological research. In 2013, the Department of Antiquities of the Kurdistan Regional Government granted RAP a five-year permit to conduct archaeological surveys and excavations in the Soran District of northeastern Erbil Province. The surrounding mountain ranges of the western Zagros have been renowned for millennia for their scenic wonders and strategically prized as a natural stronghold controlling the mountain routes afforded by the erosional forces of the Greater Zab and its tributaries, especially the immense Rowanduz Gorge and the passes at Kel-i Shin and Gawra Shinka. The high valleys provide summer pastures for herders and tracts of arable land that supported prosperous highland settlements as early as the Pre-pottery Neolithic. Remote sanctuaries, grotto shrines, and monumental rock inscriptions and stele dedicated to ancient storm and mountain deities stand testament to the primordial powers attributed to the awe inspiring landscape and the vitality of the rivers that emanated from the highlands to water the neighboring arid Mesopotamian plain and intermontane basins of Iranian Kurdistan. The Zagros also inspired fear, standing as a byword for the forces of chaos and the haunts of wild beasts, mythical creatures, bandits, and marauders. Previously scholars knew little about this region in antiquity save for its hidden potential gleaned from historical sources, travelers’ accounts, or the occasional archaeological reconnaissance. Cuneiform texts spanning the Early Bronze Age to the early Iron Age suggest the Soran District formed the territorial core of the Hurro-Urartian kingdom of Musasir/Ardini, doubly famed as home to the trans-regional cult center of the Hurrian storm-god Haldi and for the sacking of this temple and its treasury by the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II in 714 BC during his renowned Eighth Campaign. Archaeological reconnaissance and excavations have revealed evidence for human occupation over the long duration of occupations with clear evidence of the region’s prosperity in the later Bronze and early Iron Age. RAP promises to shed much new light on this Zagrosian buffer state, whatever its ancient name(s), as well as its vacillating relations vis-à-vis its hegemonic neighbors Assyria and Urartu and their complex and shifting networks of vassals and allies.

Michael Danti: is Assistant Professor with the Department of Archaeology at Boston University, and Consulting Scholar with the University of Pennsylvania Museum. He holds his degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.) and Purdue University, and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. His areas of specialization are Near Eastern archaeology, Mesopotamia, Iran, cultural heritage management, museum studies, archaeological method and theory, and complex societies. He is currently Director of Excavations at Tell es-Sweyhat (Syria), Rowanduz (Iraqi Kurdistan), Mosul (Iraq), and Director of the Hasanlu (Iraq) Publication Project. Professor Danti’s current publication projects include Hasanlu IVb: The Iron II Cemetery, Hasanlu Excavation Reports IV (with M. Cifarelli, University of Pennsylvania Musem, in preparation), Hasanlu V: The Late Bronze and Iron I Periods, Hasanlu Excavation Reports III (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), and “Searching for Musasir: The Rowanduz Archaeological Program” in New Agendas in Remote Sensing and Landscape Archaeology in the Near East (The Oriental Institute, in preparation).

For more about Michael Danti:
https://bu.academia.edu/MDanti
http://people.bu.edu/mdanti/

General Information:
All lectures are held on Sunday afternoons at 3:00 p.m. in Sabin Hall Room G90 on the UWM Campus (3413 North Downer, corner of Newport and Downer Avenues). On Sundays, parking is available in the Klotsche Center surface lot directly north of Sabin or on nearby streets.

All lectures are free and open to the public and followed by refreshments. They are co-sponsored by the Departments of Anthropology, Foreign Languages and Literature-Classics, and Art History at UW-Milwaukee.